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Seek
the beginnings
Learn from whence you came
And the various earths of which you are
made.
Edwin
Muir
Je
suis mois même la matière de mon livre
In the same
way that sixteenth century philosopher, Michel de Montaigne could assert
that he himself was the 'material' of his book of Essays, so, on reflection,
have I myself become the core of mine. When I began to write I had no
intention of writing a book - such an idea would have stopped me in my
tracks. As with many journeys of exploration, a few tentative excursions
revealed territory that invited further examination, and with the examination
and exploration courage grew, fuelled by the encouragement that I received
from friends. Filled with this new audacity, and inspired by the view
that I began to perceive, namely that of ultimate publication, I have
gone on and on, arriving at this, which I hope will be my last chapter.
At the very outset, the first words that I wrote were "I am one of
the people least likely to write anything remotely autobiographical…",
and yet everything, yes everything, is just that. Beginning with descriptions
of actual real time happenings, the words have accumulated, and just like
a Christmas tree being dressed with care, they form the 'presents' and
'gifts' hanging from it, and that have come from the squirrel store of
my garnered lifetime experiences and my understanding of these events.
These presents and gifts are there for anyone to take and to use, either
for their own benefit or that of others. Even though I have given all
that I could from myself, strangely I do not feel diminished, but paradoxically
I feel enhanced by the hope that some will find encouragement and incentive.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the self analysis and personal revelation
is that, apart from incidents and events that were played out in public
situations, by far the greatest bulk of my writing relates to what was
going on in my mind. Thoughts and self analysis are there now for all
to read - but the spiritual exchanges that have pervaded all of these,
and that are with me continuously, what of them? There is no 'cloud' of
activity buzzing around my head as is often seen in cartoons, and representing
all that is happening within the skull. I don't adopt a particular stance
or facial expression. When walking, driving, shopping; when engaged in
activities ranging from the most mundane to the most intimate, there is
often the inner exchange or intrusion and interjection. And not only into
and within my mind, but often silently, mutely, physically into
and within my body and senses.
Yet I am but one of many billions who inhabit this planet - an individual
- I repeat - an individual. My DNA is unique to me; likewise my
fingerprints and the colours in the irises of my eyes. And had I not told
you about them, the events that I have related would have stayed within
the confines of my mind and memory; silent and also unique to me. Which
is why I question so strongly conclusion about mental health and perceived
problems of the mind that are addressed through studies of multiples of
individuals. I keep returning, sometimes with mild sarcasm or criticism
to the analysis of the lives of 50,000 Swedish conscripts, and to the
conclusion that have been drawn from their behaviour that allegedly resulted
from the use of cannabis. Already the study is being quoted widely in
the context that 'smoking cannabis can cause schizophrenia', and with
50,000 men having been studied, the sheer number is taken as giving weight
and stature to the results of the analysis. And yet, totally ignored is
the fact that drugs such as cannabis, mescaline/peyote are used by shamans
and similar 'seers' to induce a physical and mental state in which spiritual
intrusion is desired and actively sought. Fear not, it is not my intention
to go on and on in detailed scrutiny of other people's work, but rather
to use it as a stalking horse to gain access to yet more thoughts of my
own.
Where does
our uniqueness begin? At birth? Before? In the womb? Before? In his Healing
the Family Tree, Dr. Kenneth McAll invites one to do just that, to
look at the family inheritance to try to find the source of an 'unquiet
spirit' that persists in plaguing individuals of subsequent descent, and,
in some cases, causing physical and mental illness.
"He
(McAll) believes that many supposedly 'incurable' patients are the victims
of ancestral control. He therefore seeks to liberate them from this control.
By drawing up a Family Tree he can identify the ancestor who is causing
the patient harm. He then cuts the bond between the ancestor and the patient
by celebrating, with a clergyman, a service of Holy Communion which delivers
the tormented ancestor to God."
Many people,
myself included, have problems with the conventional representation of
"God", yet, in the context in which I am writing, we would do
well to ponder the words of psychiatrist William James, who commented,
'We and God have business together: in opening ourselves to his influence
our deepest destiny is fulfilled. God is real because he produces real
effects.' McAll's book is both informative and provocative, and can lead
one to a whole range of speculations. For example, and still considering
the influences that can form a person in the womb, he treats of the case
of a young man who lived under his mother's protection and feared any
relationship not only with women, but with chaplains. Analysis and discussion
over a period finally produced the revelation from the mother that while
pregnant and continuing her work as a nurse, she had allowed intercourse
to take place with one of her patients, an army chaplain.
Many prospective parents play music to their unborn infants by such composers
as Mozart, in the belief that there is something sufficiently significant
in the music that can influence subsequent development. Who knows? Humans
are the only mammals that continue to have sex after conception. This
is obviously a conscious choice, and not the result of an evolutionary
imperative. Indeed, searching the Web for any comments about 'sex during
pregnancy', I was surprised to see how many sites there are, and all promoting
the desirability and 'safety' of the practice - even, in one case, into
the ninth month. Intercourse and orgasm activate just about every cell
within the body, and must obviously communicate something to the
foetus. Who can say what, and whether it is desirable for the ultimate
development of the child?
The emotional state of the mother-to-be in its general sense must be yet
another strong influence on the developing child within. I am well acquainted
with two people, now past middle age, both of whom were conceived out
of wedlock when that was a serious cause for concern, particularly for
the girl and her family. Discussion with both provides much insight into
lifetime problems that appear to have their origins in that time, and
not only during the actual pregnancy, but afterwards. In one, the father
appeared to hold deep resentment against his daughter, as unwittingly
she had been the cause of his enforced marriage. In the second, the behaviour
of the mother towards her son seemed to stem from the fact that she had
actually been 'found out' in her misdemeanour, and that he was the constant
reminder. One can only imagine what emotions must be coursing continuously
through the mind of a girl in the times, seemingly now past, when the
disaster of pregnancy struck - emotions that must be communicated to the
child within. I remember vividly the comment of one friend in 1951 as
we watched someone with whom we were well acquainted as, heavily pregnant,
she set off for her wedding. My friend was from a small and traditional
Welsh community, and all of her upbringing was contained in her deeply
felt and expressed "Oh! The shame of it!"
The child of the marriage developed cerebral palsy and I think that it
is reasonable to speculate about the possible influence upon it of the
state of mind of the mother, and wonder whether this contributed to the
child's illness. Her parental home was at the other end of the country,
and there was none of the support that would normally have been forthcoming
from family in what in those days would have been a trying time. And a
Registry Office wedding with four friends would have been vastly different
from the wedding that most mothers plan for their daughters and that most
daughters anticipate as they grow up. It is interesting to note, and not
even remotely suggesting pre-marital conception, of the five children
that I am acquainted with who were Down's syndrome, autistic, or had serious
developmental problems, all were first born.
I sometimes
speculate on what might have been the state of mind of my own mother as
she came near to giving birth to me. My arrival came twenty-two months
after that of my brother, and, in giving birth to him, she had come close
to dying from a haemorrhage, only being saved by the quick thinking and
immediate action of her family doctor who attended the birth. Was she
consumed with anxiety as my 'time' came nearer? Did her anxiety communicate
to me, and did it make me somewhat pusillanimous as a child?
And what of my father? Apart from his obvious rôle in my procreation,
if he had not found two bricks at the urgent insistence of the doctor
who had delivered my brother, my mother might not have survived, and I
definitely would not be here. The bricks propped up the foot of my mother's
bed and helped to reduce her haemorrhage. And he gave me the Vincent genes.
Very different from my brother who inherited the Matthews/Fortune variety
-making us dissimilar even in something as fundamental as blood group
- Bruce being AB while I am O. We grew at different rates until, as we
were dressed alike, people took us for twins. But with his age advantage,
he could beat me at almost anything - which is probably why to this day
I detest board games. However, in another respect, we each had the same
early imprint. I have never liked hyacinth flowers in the house - for
some reason they always make me think of death. When, in our sixties,
my brother and his wife were visiting, we were in a garden centre, and
I heard her say "Will this be the year that you let me buy hyacinths?".
It seems that he had the same aversion, and he knew, being older, that
when our grandfather had died in our home, our mother had brought bowls
of flowering hyacinths into the house to disguise any odour. I was about
three at the time, and he five.
My brother cried a lot as an infant, and when taking him out in his pram
our mother used to hurry to where the trees in Major David's garden overhung
the pavement - where he was pacified. The possible connection of this
phenomenon and my mother's haemorrhage is something to which I'll return
later as I expand my analysis. My present theme develops from an understanding
of one of the many points of inheritance that I trace to my father and
the Vincent gene. Not the belly that I have developed that matches those
of my father, grandfather and Uncle Will; not the wavy hair that was both
my pride and problem as I was developing my contacts with 'girls' in my
teens. None of those and the other similarities that prompted someone
who was asked to guess who I was on one of my return visits to my former
home. "Well it's obviously a Vincent", came the first approximation.
From my father came this peculiar body electricity, knowledge of which,
in my own case, came to the fore as my personal healing talent became
apparent. It is reasonable to assume that the natural healing that he
undertook, and that which had been performed by his parents, derived some
of its force from this inexplicable part of our make up. My grandmother,
in particular, was a powerful and much sought healer, and her untimely
death that resulted from the effects of an accident was deeply regretted
by many at the time. As a minor example, and before the advent of anti-magnetic
watches, my father could not wear a watch on his wrist, for they invariably
stopped. Whether they ever went again is something that I cannot recall.
For me, the knowledge began to provide explanations for certain reactions
and sensitivities that I have already alluded to, and which I am going
to explore more fully. If you skipped all or part of Chapter 4, this,
I am afraid, is where you may have problems. But to help you - and I hope
that those who were obedient and read it will be tolerant - I may revisit
and reprise some of the earlier points.
It is impossible to ignore the fact that all life depends for its function
upon electro-chemical and bio-electronic processes. You cannot ignore
this and say "But I am only interested in the ultimate function,
the intelligent processes of the mind, and the psychology of this person,
this patient. Why should I even bother to consider any of the internal
detail?" The reason is that this person, this patient is a totality
- an individual totality; an electrical phenomenon that lives on a huge
electrical machine, the earth, and interacts with - everything.
Robert Becker writes of the Body Electric and its complexities,
and Crosscurrents. Fred Soyka wrote of his mental and medical response
to the varying concentrations of electrical ions in the air. Gustav von
Pohl described vividly the illnesses, both physical and mental, that affected
individuals who slept or worked in locations influenced by geo-electricity,
as did Käthe Bachler in her seminal work, and as does Rolf Gordon
in his book. Becker began his research into the current of regeneration
required to mend fractured bones, and ended with a wide analysis of the
electrical function of various bodily processes. Along the way he confirmed
that the acupuncture matrix that links all parts of the body and brain
is, in fact, a series of subtle electrical circuits, and it is with this
particular body-brain phenomenon that I will begin.
"But", you may say, "Even if does exist, what possible
connection can the acupuncture system have with mental health - and particularly
with spirit intrusion". Here, and making allowance for simple
translation from the original Chinese, are just a few sample conditions
that are capable of being treated from various acupuncture points - madness,
epilepsy, 'alarm in children', vertigo, sadness, 'stage fright', 'a few
days before menstruation cries, depressed anxious and nervous', 'mental
stupidity', 'prone to fear and unhappiness', 'wishes to remain at home',
'does not wish to live', 'walks around madly', delirium, insanity, forgetfulness,
frequent weeping, 'eyes move wildly', suicidal.
Many in mainstream medicine dismiss acupuncture out of hand; others acknowledge
the possibility of a limited rôle in analgesia, while GP friend
'Harry' used to adopt the 'Pavlovian dog' conditioned and immediate response,
and come out with dire warnings about 'getting hepatitis from the needles'.
Although it is not my intention to write a dissertation on the subject
of acupuncture and the relevance to physical and mental health, an acceptance
of its significance and an understanding of the complex 'circuitry' interlinking
every strand and function of the body, mind and senses, is necessary to
be able to follow my argument. In acupuncture treatment, the goal is to
try to restore the exquisite balance that should exist between the various
parts of the matrix, called meridians, and between the two sides of the
body. A corollary is that damage or distortion at the seat of an acupuncture
point can act in reverse, so to speak, and has the potential of causing
the very conditions that would be treated from the point. My purpose at
this stage is to suggest various ways in which imbalance may be caused,
and then to show how the intelligent sources of spiritual intrusion can
exploit the resultant disturbed mind and body for their own inexplicable
purposes. But more than that, I believe that this subtle 'circuitry' provides
the open door through which other forms of electrical interference enter,
and hence widens the range of discomfort and inexplicable unease that
can be exploited so easily.
It is very easy to dismiss acupuncture and indeed many other branches
of Oriental and Asian medicine as coming from 'primitive' ideas and cultures,
and to say that real medicine only began in Europe from about the
eighteenth century onwards. Anyone with an interest in the inheritance
from 'the East' might find The Genius of China by Robert Temple
to their taste. "3,000 years of science, discovery and invention"
are described and analysed. For example, in engineering, the Chinese used
techniques for deep drilling for brine and natural gas from before the
first century B.C., while in medicine, as well as acupuncture there are
early records that demonstrate knowledge of the circulation of the blood
and of circadian rhythms.
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