h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi ZSF

Thanks for the info. Well, it may not sound much like it from the conversations I've been having re booze, food etc., but actually I rarely drink at all any more, precisely because of the arthritic tendencies. Nor do I eat any meat. And I avoid citrus fruits. And I eat loads of green veg, and avoid tea and coffee ( haven't drunk coffee in years.)I do eat oily fish, and scrunch up celery, and take glucosamine plus other vitamins. And keep mobile on the bicycle.

Alas, wear and tear on the load-bearing joints is the real problem, plus genetic pre-disposition ( Both parents.)

Is there anything I've left out? There was a very depressing article in the recent "Time" magazine all about arthritis, and the fact that there's still no cure for it. Oh well. Joint replacements are improving all the time, they say.

Macallan too sweet! Try the 30 year old stuff. As for the USB broadband network connection, right click on my computer, goto the device mangler tab and remove the usb hubs and let windows reinstall them on reboot. That may fix your USB problem.

Ray, now with new improved dreadlocks from jamacia

hi Raymondo,

I can only imagine that a 12-year-old Macallan aged in sherry casks gets its sweetness from this. Would love to try the 30-year-old stuff, but personal finances prohibit this particular pleasure

New improved dreadlocks? Have always been intrigued by dreadlocks. Are they hair extensions or just the hair one has treated to go all dreadlocky?

az

some use extensions, but I actually had enough hair that day to use my own

as for the scotch, I never had that much either, but my boss did and I let him fill my glass on any occasion that warranted it. We used to go to his private club high atop los colinas called La Ciemea (the ceiling) drink $150.00 shots of scotch, and smoke expensive cigars. Unfortunately the company was not up to my ethical standards and I had to leave. Plus they tried to blame a 3.7 million dollar mistake on me, when I was the one that advised them not to do it! I left after making him $20,000,000 in a single month, processing credit cards for people who shouldn't have credit cards. When I started 9 months earlier, their credit card take was only $80,000. a month.

Well, Chai,

Excercise for the load-bearing joints is still one of the best things you can do to keep things like osteoporosis at bay and there are mobility excercises I get my t'ai chi/qigong class to do which help keep joints mobile and help with arthritis.

I suspect a big element is your personal beliefs. If you believe something is going to happen, you help to create it. I heard a lovely story about a woman who was struck down with lupus, for which the medics couldn't do anything. So she went home (to the Phillipines, I think), consulted a local healer, who removed a curse from her. When she went back to America and saw the medics again - no sign of the lupus.

hi Zarquon,

Yes, I have heard similar stories. One of the most famous ones is Norman Cousins who cured himself of something rather horrible (some sort of denegerative disease, can't remember now exactly what it was) by daily doses of laughter.

But then what do you say about people with, for example, terminal cancer? That they *want* to have cancer, somehow? If it *is* possible for us to control how our body reacts to various diseases (and I like to think this is at least somewhat true) then how much 'responsibility' can we take if our bodies don't respond well to a prescribed treatment?

Other examples of 'disease unfairness'. I know people who have drunk alcohol daily and smoked heavily all their lives and lived to a ripe old age and I know of one person who never touched a drop of alcohol in his life, never even had a cup of coffee in his entire life, and ended up with liver cancer in his late forties. Go figure!

az

hi Ben,

See you are now a Broadband call Ben.

funny girl,
az

Yes, I heard of that one, az.

He checked himself out of hospital and into a hotel and played films/videos of the likes of Laurel and Hardy and laughed himself well.

On a spiritual level, things like breast cancer are supposed to be prevalent in women who spend their lives caring for others, but fail to care for themselves and who often exerience lack of joy in their lives.

No-one consciously chooses illness (well not many), however at an unconscious level, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

There is a wonderful and profoundly challenging book called 'The Healing Power of Illness' which suggests that illness is part of how we express ourselves.

We all have a shadow-side, and Jung was probably the first to acknowledge the shadow without describing it as something bad. The authors of the book suggest that we express things through illness which we either cannot or do not express in any other way - like the women with breast-cancer expressing love.

It is hard to think that our subconscious could or would make us ill, and even harder to think that this may - in some strange way - be a good thing. But whenever I see alternative practitioners, (I currently go to a homeopath and an osteopath), I say 'don't take away my migraines'. I get a lot of benefit out of my migraines - I sleep a lot and get truly rested, I drift in and out of dream-sleep and process any s**t going on in my life at the time, they stop me working too hard and making myself *really* ill, and I get to look pale and interesting in a vaguely victorian way.

They hurt, I feel lousy, I throw up, I am in considerable pain, I cannot think clearly, but they act like energetic, emotional or chemical regulators, re-setting the mechanism on an even and sustainable rhythm.

B

PS - glad you like the name, Az.

B

I think we have to be very very careful about making any generalisations on the matter of illnesses and their psychology.

Read Ken Wilbur's "Grace and Grit" for an amazingly moving story of his wife's unsuccessful battle with breast cancer, which nonetheless led to an extraordinary transformation.

Or "Collision with the Infinite," by Susan Segal, who became realised, but eventually died of a brain tumour,

Or Brandon Bays, "The Journey," in which she successfully rid herself of a football sized stomach tumour, and is still teaching "The Journey" path to health.

Tsultrim Allione ( A western Tibetan Buddhist nun/wife/mother ) has made a brilliant tape about the ancient technique of "Chod," in which she uses the "demon-feeding" ritual to heal diseases, including AIDS. Her version of the teaching is that the "demons" are part of our psyches that we have not integrated, and diseases are "demons" in some form or other.

So the technique is to visualise the disease as an entity, to give it definite form, colour, skin texture and so-on, and then to ask it to tell you what it wants from you, to see yourself from its perspective.

Whatever it wants, you give it in limitless amounts, remembering that in consciousness, anything is possible, and you have infinite resources, endless bodies, etc., whatever is needed to feed it. You then feed the demon on a daily basis until it is completely satiated. Thereby it is transformed from a negative "demon" into a positive "daemon" ( the original Greek word meaning indwelling spirit, which became negative, "demonised" sometime in the middle ages.)

She says she has had great success treating addicts by getting them to see their addictions as entities, with which they can then deal powerfully, positively, spiritually feeding them ( as opposed to being their victim ).

At the other end of the scale, the XVIth Karmapa "died" of cancer in an American hospital, having chosen the place and time. But he confused the doctors ( whom he said needed a lesson in the art of dying ) by alternately displaying severe advanced cancer one day, and zero symptoms at all the next.

When his time to die came, he told his attendants that no-one should touch his body till it fell forward. He sat in lotus, closed his eyes, and "flatlined." Everything, heart, breathing, brain, blood-pressure, zilch.

The emergency team came charging in to resucitate him, but the attendants wouldn't let them touch the Karmapa. They said no-one should touch his body till it fell forward. The EA team said, "OK, we'll wait. It shouldn't be long." Three days later, his body fell forward.

There is so much we don't understand, isn't there?

PS. Welcome back Ben. I do hope that the change of name is a sign of happier computer times for you.

hello,

Wow, everyone is up so late.

Yes, there is so much we don't understand. I still wonder how much we can control what happens to our bodies. All of these very interesting examples are quite the exception to what usually happens, but I do think we have more 'power' than we realize.

So, I have a bad back 'on purpose'? I wonder why?

az

Dear Az,

I don't think you have a bad back "on purpose," any more than I have arthritic tendencies "on purpose," or diverticulitis "on purpose."

I really have grave doubts about that line of thinking, but nonetheless, I think it's worth trying a "minds-on" approach to dealing with them.

For instance, both gouty arthritis ( which is the diet-sensitive type ) and diverticulitis run in my family ( both parents.) So I am genetically prone. Is that karma? And therefore my "responsibility?"

So, Shree Ramana Maharshi died of cancer, as did Swami Vivekananda, and Shree Nisargadatta Maharaj, and the Karmapa, and Shree Brahmananda Saraswati ( MMY's Guru Dev ). What do we make of that?

Moth would say we have all chosen our destinies before we incarnated. I dunno. Shit happens, and we just deal with it as best we can.

morning Chai,

for you, for me . . .

<>

Yes, I agree. I think it would be unfair if people were considered to be totally personally responsible for their illnesses. I mean, people who smoke and drink who get cancer often get less sympathy than others as they are said be ill because of their habits (though sometimes people are just genetically prone to cancer). And then taking that even further and suggesting that someone has chosen their karma, hence their illness - well, this is all getting into lots of shady areas (no pun intended Ben )

I think that people can sometimes make themselves ill by being extremely unhappy and negative, just like some ill people can make themselves well again by being happy and positive. And maybe it *is* possible for us to control our bodies more than we think we can. But I don't think most people 'choose' to be unwell or die, either consciously or unconsciously.

(Yeah, that *is* weird that all those guru guys died of cancer.)

az

ps

<>

That's actually the way I see things too.

az

I would never say that anyone is ill 'on purpose', but I was fascinated by your account of illness being a demon which has something it wants, and which can be interacted with. That makes complete sense to me.

In the west we give far too much credit to consciousness, and we believe that we have conscious choice to a far greater degree than in fact we do.

So I am comfortable with the idea that illness or disease can be part of how our deepest nature expresses itself in this life, without ascribing control or responsibility to having that disease.

B

Yes, hence the fairy story that we only use 5 or 10% of our available brain power. The truth is that our *conscious minds* use 5 to 10% of our available brain power, and the rest is used by the unconscious mind. The myth was fabricated by people who couldn't bear to think they weren't in full and complete *conscious* control of their bodies and their lives.

Those interested might like to get hold of "Hare brain, tortoise mind" by Guy Claxton. It will tell you all kinds of fascinating things about your unconscious mind. I borrowed it from the library, but soon invested in my own copy.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Temptress! Shades of Helena Bonham-Carter.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"