Author: Ophelia Benson

As you may have seen in News the other day, David Colquhoun provides excerpts from ‘a lengthy set of notes for a first year course on “The Holistic Model of Healthcare”…from the 2005 course at Thames Valley University’ (along with a link to the whole thing). It’s fascinating stuff – and it raises a familiar question.

[T]he subject of Wholistic Nutrition transcends the area of human understanding for which science, alone, is appropriate. The reason is that it is ‘vitalistic’. It recognises the presence in all life forms including the human body, of subtle (or ‘etheric’) energy forces not easily measurable by the physicist’s equipment. It shares that position with the ‘energy medicine’ disciplines such as homoeopathy, traditional acupuncture and spiritual healing. It follows an approach to those subtle energies that is embodied in the discipline and philosophy of naturopathy. Vitalism is the notion that life in living organisms is sustained by a vital principle that cannot be explained in terms of physics and chemistry. This vital principle, often called “the life force”, is something quite distinct from the physical body and is responsible for much that happens in health and disease.

The question is familiar (around here) because I keep asking it. If there are subtle energy forces not easily measurable by the physicist’s (or anyone else’s) equipment, then how do Wholistic Nutritionists or Vitalists or anyone else know they are there or anything about them? It’s just like the god question. We’re always hearing that god transcends science and is completely different and can’t be measured by our mere scientific equipment. Okay, but then what equipment can it be measured by? Nobody ever says. In the god case some people do say it can’t be measured by any equipment, but then they still don’t say how they know it’s there. They pretend they say (it’s ‘experience’; one just knows; it’s an interaction), but they don’t.

But so then how do the Vitalists know any of the things they claim to know and pronounce on with such confidence? What is the source of all the palaver in the Thames Valley University course notes? There’s a grotesque disconnect between the frank declaration of Zero Knowledge at the outset and the abundant unbashful proliferation of truth claims in the rest of the document.

There is a kind of admission of the problem:

At the root of most hoIistic therapies lies the belief that all life is animated by a subtle force. We call this the Life Force. You either believe it or you do not. It cannot exactly be proved at the moment and the belief is not in accord with the yardsticks that we call ’scientific’, The belief is a little akin to the belief in God or in spirits or ghosts, and yet at the same time it is not, because the Life Force is by no means so remote from us.

You either believe it or you do not, but we will go right ahead and give medical advice as if we had something more than ‘belief’ backing up our whacked ideas.

As mentioned above, toxic foci (deposits) in the body show up in the iris of the eye. The iris is arranged so as to encompass a complete ‘map’ of the body. with all the organs and systems laid out upon it. Hence the location of a toxic deposit in the iris shows the iridologist its position within the body. The toxins may appear as colours, spots. blobs and smears in particular places in the iris, or as darkened areas.

Uh…right. Bye now.

Now for something more serious. Something intolerable.

Ostracised, vulnerable and frightened, she wandered the streets in south-eastern Nigeria, sleeping rough, struggling to stay alive. Mary was found by a British charity worker and today lives at a refuge in Akwa Ibom province with 150 other children who have been branded witches, blamed for all their family’s woes, and abandoned. Before being pushed out of their homes many were beaten or slashed with knives, thrown onto fires, or had acid poured over them…Many of those branded “child-witches” are murdered – hacked to death with machetes, poisoned, drowned, or buried alive in an attempt to drive Satan out of their soul. The devil’s children are “identified” by powerful religious leaders at extremist churches where Christianity and traditional beliefs have combined to produce a deep-rooted belief in, and fear of, witchcraft. The priests spread the message that child-witches bring destruction, disease and death to their families.

And the priests get rich on ‘exorcisms.’

The exorcism costs the families up to a year’s income. During the “deliverance” ceremonies, the children are shaken violently, dragged around the room and have potions poured into their eyes. The children look terrified. The parents look on, praying that the child will be cleansed. If the ritual fails, they know their children will have to be sent away, or killed. Many are held in churches, often on chains, and deprived of food until they “confess” to being a witch. The ceremonies are highly lucrative for the spiritual leaders many of whom enjoy a lifestyle of large homes, expensive cars and designer clothes.

The ‘spiritual leaders’ – even in a piece like this the flattering labels are pasted on. ‘Spiritual,’ forsooth – spiritual in what sense?

Michael Binyon in The Times slobbers over Charles for being interested in lots of religions.

[N]o monarch since the Stuarts has taken an intellectual interest in religion, and none has devoted time and respect to other faiths. The Prince, however, counts bishops and moral philosophers, rabbis, priests and Islamic scholars among those whom he regularly meets and with whom he discusses the spiritual dimensions of life in Britain today.

Find the odd one out. Got it in one. What are ‘moral philosophers’ doing in that mob? Does this beezer think moral philosophy is a ‘faith’?

For him, the concept of faith — any faith — is important in the crusade against the rising tide of secular materialism and scientific reductionism, both of which he detests.

Ah, does he. He prefers the tyrannical rule of an unreachable unaccountable unknowable god, does he. Well that makes sense in a way, of course, given that he too represents a silly anachronistic semi-magical form of government.

The other day ‘hanmeng’ said in a comment on ‘God-talk as an unstated norm’ that the bible is Obama’s favourite book and later quoted from a keynote address he gave in 2006. The quotation was worrying – especially this bit –

[W]hat I am suggesting is this – secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas[s], Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant [Bryan], Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King – indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history – were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their “personal morality” into public policy debates is a practical absurdity.

I was going to dispute that, but reading the whole address I found that Obama did some of the disputing for me. He doesn’t mean what that passage in isolation would seem to indicate that he means.

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Well – that’s what I was going to say, and he’s already said it, in the same address, so I don’t need to bother. I had already thought he knew that, must know that, being 1) sensible and 2) a Constitutional scholar; but the quotation worried me. But if all religious people understood and agreed to that principle, we would all have a lot less to worry about.

I was going to say that it’s all very well to talk about Douglass and King, but they are not the only reformers in American history who were motivated by their religion and use religious language. Fred Phelps and Randall Terry are a couple more; so are throngs of people who opposed everything Douglass and King stood for. It always irritates the bejesus out of me when opponents of secularism cherry-pick their reformers and movements in order to defend the place of religion in politics, as if Christian defenders of slavery and segregation had never existed. I was prepared to give Obama a damn good scolding for doing that, but he doesn’t really do that (although I think he ought to have mentioned the anti-Douglasses, since he brought it up). He doesn’t really do that and, more important, he doesn’t shy away from stating the principle involved.

Gene Robinson states it too.

The Anglican church’s first gay bishop and the United States’ first black President-elect discussed in depth the place of religion in the state. Bishop Robinson said: “He and I would agree about the rightful place of religion vis-a-vis the secular state. That is to say, we don’t impose our religious values on the secular state because God said so. Our faith informs our own values and then we take those values into the civil market place, the civil discourse, and then you argue for them based on the Constitution. You don’t say to someone, you must believe this because this is what God believes.”

Quite.

There are (I suppose this was inevitable) some skeptics now claiming that people are rejoicing at Obama’s election because he’s black – which is true in one way but false in another. The way it’s true is probably obvious enough; the way it’s false is that 1) that’s not the only reason and 2) we would have been rejoicing anyway. Obama’s being black is neither necessary nor sufficient for the rejoicing. Here’s why. Suppose a Sarah Palin who was black – identical to Palin in every other way, but black. A very different, much smaller, and much more delusional crowd would be rejoicing. Suppose an Obama who was white – identical to Obama in every other way, but white. We would still be rejoicing – although a huge element of the actual rejoicing would be missing.

There are some people sneering at the emotionality. Fuck’em. Seriously. I’m as skeptical as the next person, I too like to be cautious with my admiration and respect (let alone affection), I too am aware that sentimentality is risky for clarity of thought. But I do not think this particular example of mass enthusiasm is irrational. It’s emotional, but it’s not irrational.

It’s funny…I wasn’t really prepared for how emotional it turned out to be. I’m not the only one. I never really allowed myself to imagine what it would be like, because like so many people I was so afraid it wouldn’t happen – I was trying to minimize the disappointment. So when it happened – so abruptly – it was like being knocked down by a wave. What can I tell you? It was no ordinary moment. It just wasn’t, and for so many reasons – not all of which were to do with race.

It’s interesting that it was very little about race until that moment. That aspect was left mostly in the background (including in coded messages from the opposition, of course) during the campaign, but then the moment the election was announced, that aspect zoomed into the foreground and took over for the evening. Good. The campaign was run on the merits, then once it was over, we could go ahead and celebrate the symbolism. Aided by the echoes of King’s mountaintop speech – not that there was much need for aid.

What can I tell you? We don’t get many moments like that. I can’t think of any like it. The sneerers can go write condolence cards to Sarah Palin.