Healing Through Consciousness: Ep. 11: The Spirituality of Health

We’ve been focusing on more specific health situations in our series lately, and we’ll continue that today with an expansive look at eating disorders. You may know someone dealing with this neurosis – it’s all too common today – and you’ll find an abundance of treatments for this – most of them physical and ranging from highly elaborate nutritional plans to pills to acupuncture to removing part of the stomach.And the explanations for the problem are diverse as well. But the view explored from the psycho-somatic department of the Keppe & Pacheco Trilogical College offers a deeper perspective too often missing from the conversation.Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco heads up that department, expertly oriented by Dr. Norberto Keppe, 94 and still active and adding to his remarkable science daily. Dr. Pacheco joins us again today.Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to download the PDF.

In the early part of the 20th century, a non-medical educator was hired by the Carnegie Foundation to report on the state of medical education in North America. Abraham Flexner wrote a book concluding that there were too many bad medical schools, too much non-scientific quackery and curricula that were all over the place. Specifically, there was a lack of application of the scientific method in medical education in general.The report led to the closing of many so-called medical schools in America – some of which were apparently no more than proprietary for-profit trade schools run by one or more doctors. Flexner’s work ended study in alternative health treatments like homeopathy, traditional osteopathy and any physio-medicine using botanical therapies that had not been scientifically tested.And, of course, medical education came firmly under the control of the American Medical Association.All that focus on the scientific method took spirituality out of medicine – and science – as well, something Norberto Keppe has spent a lifetime addressing in his Trilogical psychosomatics. Today, an expansive meditation on the spirituality of health, with Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco.Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to download the PDF.

I’m a product of the ‘60s and ‘70s. I saw guys trying to homestead in the woods of Vancouver Island as I was walking to a favorite swimming hole. I remember the distinctive smell of those funny cigarettes permeating the summer air. I thought they were struggling to find something.I also remember some idiot slipping a hit of acid into a friend’s brother’s drink at a party, and watching the ensuing bad trip play out horribly in front of us all.Our question from a listener today addresses those two points. He writes, “I have classified drugs into two categories: mind numbing drugs, like cocaine, tobacco, heroin, alcohol, et cetera, and mind opening drugs, like peyote, cannabis, mushrooms, etc. While the mind-numbing drugs have been found to be dangerous and highly addictive. the mind opening drugs have been used for centuries and show no signs of addiction or even lasting health problems with repetitious use. Does Dr. Keppe acknowledge this distinction between these drugs? If so, what is Dr. K's view of the spirit worlds that the mind opening drugs seem to unlock? Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco is with us again today.Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to download the PDF.

What is an addictive personality? You’ll see all sorts of definitions if you Google that! From addiction being a learning disorder, to a passion for something gone wrong, to the more serious diagnosis that it’s a character disorder, it’s difficult to get a final word on this all-too-common behavior.I’ve been around my share of addictive behavior, including a favorite uncle who beat his battle with the bottle courageously and, I think, cold turkey, and lived out the rest of his life as a functional and responsible contributor to society. I remember him with great affection.But it’s in the treatment of addiction that we really find out what’s going on. However, that treatment must involve helping the addicted individual move out of the modern mania of seeing all problems as having outside causes. Dr. Keppe once told me that healing only comes through interiorization, which is the process of helping people begin to have contact with what’s going on inside them. This is a prominent aspect of any psychoanalysis session with Dr. Keppe’s Integral Psychoanalysis.We’ll see anther wonderful example of that today with Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco talking to Jen, who’s trying to understand how to help her family. Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to read the PDF.

Well, this is a relevant – and disturbing – topic for any who’ve experienced its devastating effects. The thought of someone taking his or her own life can leave us bewildered and even horrified. How could someone do that?, we wonder. And why? And when we see it happening in teenagers and young adults, we’re even more mystified. They’ve got their whole lives ahead of them, we reason. And while that’s true, it seems that opting out is becoming an increasingly common choice in many countries around the world – particularly in the so-called developed world. Lucky you are if you haven't been touched by this one. The guilt and anger that resides in the ones left behind is a real thing. Freud put forward that suicide was a result of aggression turned inwards, while Jung offered complex thoughts and ideas about the psyche's journey needing to go through the totality of experience, and while all of that may play a part, it doesn’t really help us in understanding and dealing with suicide. Norberto Keppe’s science of Integral Psychoanalysis is, in my view, uniquely equipped to deal with all psychological, emotional and spiritual crises, and in today’s program, a real-life case study with a frequent listener to our programs, Jane, who brings her particular challenge in dealing with suicide. Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to read the PDF.

This is Episode 7 of the Healing Through Consciousness series on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. This time, a clinical look at a modern mental health crisis. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones.We’ve been laying a foundation for a more psychological and even spiritual approach to health and healing in our first 6 episodes of this series. That’s been important. But Norberto Keppe and Claudia Pacheco’s work in psychosomatic healing is not just conceptual. There’s a vast history of clinical therapeutic treatment of a wide range of physical and mental health disease conditions at the Integral Psychoanalysis center here in Brazil. From depression – our topic today – to cancer to spiritual crises, this is a very robust treatment methodology with impressive success rates over many years. And we’ll dive into an exploration of what’s behind depression in this episode, but first, an overview of Keppe’s approach to psychoanalysis, with Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco.Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to download the PDF.

Today on Episode 6 of the Healing Through Consciousness series on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head, we’ll look at the effect our minds have on our immune system. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones.One of the consequences of Louis Pasteur’s Germ Theory was the inevitable fear that outside us lurk nefarious elements waiting for their opportunity to pounce. Deadly viruses and germs in birds and pigs and now bats and monkeys are lining up to show us their stuff, and it’s possible they’ve been strengthened by genetic mutations in secret labs.Gain of Function research is what that’s called, and it’s essentially the process of genetically altering pathogens to make them more infectious.You heard that right. Making them more infectious. The justification given is that this will allow for the creation of effective anti-viral medicines before the virus appears from nature. So … just to get that straight: Gain of Function research means creating the virus before it even exists. Reminds me of the old Monty Python routine about the secret Welsh art of self-defense that counsels you to attack your enemy before the thought of attacking you has even entered his mind.Because it’s the same rationale, isn’t it? And it’s a little disturbing, not least because the paranoia created by viewing the danger outside increases our fear, and subsequently diminishes our immune system response. Today, I’m joined by Cesar Soós, the lead researcher in the New Physics Department of our Keppe & Pacheco College, to look at how the mind is important in our immune system.Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to download the PDF.

This is episode 4 of the Healing Through Consciousness series on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones. From the time we're young, we're taught to protect our lives from nature. Sprays to keep off the bugs, oils to block the harmful rays, potent cleansers to ward off the offending bacteria waiting to take up residence in the bathroom.And don’t even think about eating that bread that dropped on the floor.Nature is often a savage place, we're shown on Discovery Channel documentaries, where evil microbes lurk expectantly, waiting for us to let down our guard for a split second before pouncing. You wonder where the vaunted human immune system goes in situations like these, and how hugging your grandmother came to be so dangerous. Well, there are huge financial interests behind this idea that the danger lies outside. We need vaccines to protect us from outside enemies, and some estimates put combined vaccine company profits at some $65,000 per minute. We’ve accepted toxic pesticides as necessary to deal with pesky plagues, and there are obvious implications for human and eco-system health associated with that. Our multi-billion-dollar drug industry to treat symptoms can often exacerbate serious disease conditions. We don’t want to branch off into conspiracy theory here, but medical education in the West today is notorious for training doctors that pharma solutions are the only option. And pharma lives on treating outside invasions or faulty hormones, chemical imbalances and deficient organs. However, just to throw a significant alternative spanner into the works, Drs. Keppe and Pacheco have been working for decades on treating physical, mental and even social infirmity through a potent form of psycho-socio therapy. And their work suggests strongly that disease doesn't come principally from outside us at all. In their clinic, disease is largely an interior condition, while the modern medical and drug establishment makes its money, and consolidates its hold on treatment and treatment narratives, by provoking fear of what’s going on outside. And they call the shots today. The consequences, however, make us sicker. Here’s Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco.Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to download the PDF.

From the psychosomatic department of the Keppe & Pacheco Colleges, this is episode 3 of the Healing Through Consciousness series on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones.It’s been very interesting to live through this pandemic time, hasn’t it? In the face of a real worldwide challenge, it’s been illuminating to watch how health has taken a back seat to fear. Panic, I think we could say, has largely driven our political and social responses to infection, and this seems to have trumped any reliance on a robust immune response, which used to be the policy of choice for dealing with infectious disease situations. And, of course, we must always pay attention to the cynical manipulation of this fear to sell medicines and vaccines and other products to protect us from this outside danger.In the face of all this, we’ve shifted from a faith in the robustness of human health and potent immune response to a philosophy of trying to protect the massive human population from exposure – a change from believing in the power of nature to trepidation at the dominance of disease.This just seems inferior – tantamount to an athlete’s misguided response to challenge by playing not to lose instead of going for it with vigor and conviction.As some progressive health professionals are acknowledging, though, disease doesn’t begin outside; the roots of physical disease lie inside. The soul, actually, gets sick before the body. Welcome to Episode 3 with Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco. Click here to listen to this episode:Click here to download the PDF.

From the psychosomatic department of the Keppe & Pacheco Colleges, this is episode 2 of the Healing Through Consciousness series on Thinking with Somebody Else’s Head. I’m Richard Lloyd Jones.Our first episode was spent laying out some credentials of our College’s psychosomatic vision and pedigree. And I want to stress that our discussions here in these episodes are based on solid clinical case studies, as you’ll see throughout our series. And where we’re coming from is this: good health is a natural state. In philosophy, great thinkers like Augustine and Plotinus and Aquinas proposed that evil, unlike good, is insubstantial. So thinking of evil as a substantial entity is incorrect. All those years ago, the consideration was that evil is the privation of good, and even that evil is non-existent.That’s difficult to accept, but it’s meant in the sense of the nature of life being good, and problems or pain or cruelty being nothing but attitudes against that inherent goodness. In terms of our health, then, sickness could be a kind of proof of something we’re doing against our health. Individually and collectively, of course. We can see this as attitudes or habits we adopt that work against our natural health, like a propensity for junk food or the destruction of our natural food with toxic chemicals, as I mentioned in episode 1.Seen this way, sickness represents a distortion of health, not a naturally occurring situation at all. A challenging idea, which dramatically changes how we approach health and the treatment of disease.Let’s tread into those exciting waters on our episode today with Dr. Claudia Bernhardt Pacheco.Click here to listen to this episode.Click here to download the PDF.