A NEW Vision of the Coming Era in Medicine
By Liz Sterling

Do we have to have a reason to believe? Can’t we just have faith? Not according to Dr. Larry Dossey, a pioneer in the field of Mind-Body Medicine. This tall and distinguished Texas physician, a scientist at heart, has become an influential advocate of the role of the mind in health and the role of spirituality in healthcare. Dr. Dossey offers us, the readers of Living In Balance Magazine, panoramic insight into the future of medicine.

Dr. Dossey graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin and earned his M.D. degree from Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, 1967. Before completing his residency in internal medicine, he served as a battalion surgeon in Vietnam, where he was decorated for valor.

An education steeped in traditional Western medicine did not prepare Dr. Dossey for patients who were blessed with—miracle cures—remissions that clinical medicine could not explain. He spent years tracking down stories to validate what he observed in controlled experiments. Small groups of people prayed for patients’ recovery. The results were fascinating and scientifically documented—prayer works! “Almost all physicians possess a list of strange happenings unexplainable by normal science,” says Dr. Dossey. But with scientific evidence in hand, Dossey knew a gold mine existed in this untapped arena and set out to change modern science’s mechanistic model of medicine.

The primary quality of Dr. Dossey’s work is scientific legitimacy, with an insistent focus on “what the data shows.” The impact of Dr. Dossey’s work has been remarkable. Before his book Healing Words was published in 1993, only three U.S. medical schools had courses devoted to exploring the role of religious practice and prayer in health; currently, nearly eighty medical schools have instituted such courses.

In his book, Reinventing Medicine (1999), Dossey describes three periods in medicine: Eras I, II and llI. These eras describe the periods through which medicine has progressed since the second half of the 19th century.

Era I, which can be called ‘mechanical medicine’ began roughly in the 1860s. It reflects the prevailing view that health and illness are totally physical in nature. In Era l, mind or the consciousness is essentially equated with the functioning of the brain. “Today,” Dr. Dossey elaborates in his newest book, Healing Beyond the Body (2001), “We have clearly proven that consciousness can do things the brain can’t do. This opens up doorways that allow us to think outside the box. Era II commenced in the period following World War II. Physicians began to realize, based on scientific evidence, that disease has a ‘psychosomatic’ aspect: emotions and feelings can influence the body’s functions. Psychological stress, for example, can contribute to high blood pressure, heart attacks and ulcers. This was a radical advance over Era I.”

He continues, “the recently developing Era III goes even further by proposing that consciousness is not confined to one’s individual body. Nonlocal mind, mind that is boundless and unlimited, is the hallmark of Era III. Dr. Dossey’s ever-deepening explication of nonlocal mind provides a legitimate foundation for the merging of spirit and medicine. The ramifications of such a union are radical and call for no less than the reinvention of medicine. “An individual’s mind may affect not just his or her body, but also the body of another person at a distance, (through prayer and thoughts) even when that distant individual is unaware of the effort,” Dossey tells us. “Additionally” he adds, “it’s important to remember that these Eras are not mutually exclusive; rather they coexist, overlap and are used together, as when drugs are used with psychotherapy and surgery is used with prayer.”

“The most interesting Era,” Dossey states, “is Era III. The evidence supporting Era III implies that there are no boundaries to consciousness, that it is infinite in space and time. If our minds are unbounded, then they must unite or come together at some level. This means that in some sense we are literally one. The implications of this unity are profound. The biggest payoff of Era III concerns our destiny. If our mind is non-local and boundless, then it is infinite in time. Era III carries with it the promise of immortality, which is a cure for the “disease” that has caused more suffering for humans than any other: the fear of death.”

We can all find a bit of solace in the advancements in spirituality and medicine and as Dr. Dossey says, “we can see this coming together seamlessly. As nonlocal mind becomes a living reality for more people, we could become a kinder, gentler culture. Nonlocal mind leads to what I call the Golden Rule of Era III: ‘Do good unto others because they are you!’ Why? Because nonlocal mind is unlimited and boundless, which means that minds can’t be walled off from each other. In some sense, at some level, we are each other!”

Dossey’s prescription for the future is comforting. “Creative breakthroughs and prophetic knowing will become ordinary. Empathy and compassion will flower as a result of our deeper connection with one another. The awareness of immortality takes the pressure off living and dying. This will not happen automatically, however. We have to do our share and set our biases and prejudices aside. These are urgent matters.”

“The major challenge we face” Dossey informs us, “is how to infuse medicine with a compassionate quality. The good news is—this challenge is being met. In the future, high-tech medicine will remain with us and will become even more prominent. But in addition, psychological and spiritual approaches to healing will assume an essential position. Healers will take their places in surgery suites, coronary care units and emergency rooms, as they are already beginning to do in some hospitals. As a result, it will feel different to be a patient. One will know that ‘the system’ cares about the soul as well as the body. Fantasy? Hardly. These changes are already showing up in some of the major hospitals in the country.”

We can have faith knowing prayer works, knowing our interconnectedness and knowing that our world is healing too. Yes, we’re undergoing radical changes that have stirred up uncertainty, but now we have a reason to believe, and science proves it!

© 2002 Balance Magazine