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America puts too much faith in Eastern healing
There’s a huge double-standard in American intellectual and spiritual
life. Millions of otherwise rational, intelligent, Americans who are
used to questioning what they’re told and thinking for themselves, are
abandoning their critical thinking skills and accepting even the most
absurd spiritual instructions at face value. For many American’s, if it
comes from Asia, it must be right.
There’s an expression in the United States, “The grass is always
greener on the other side.” It means that someone else’s yard always
looks better than your own. The very nature of the yard belonging to
someone else is the quality that makes it attractive, even though your
own yard may be just as good.
In Tompkins Square Park, a small green space in Manhattan’s east
village, massage tables are often set up. One day, I saw a young man
with pierced eyebrows and tattooed arms lie face down on one of the
tables. A portly man in a bright red t-shirt stood over the younger man
and closed his eyes in concentration. The chubby man brought his hands
to hover above the table, never actually touching the young man who lay
there. What I witnessed was a free demonstration of Reiki.
According to the literature that I was given by a middle-aged woman
with a wide smile, the even was a demonstration of Reiki. Reiki is an
alternative form of medicine with origins in Japan, in which the
practitioner and the fully-clothed recipient never actually touch.
Positive energy is passed between them, and this is very healing.
The concept of healing by touch is not new to the United States. In the
South, there are many Christian preachers who claim that they can heal
people just by touching them. They believe that the healing powers of Jesus Christ
pass through their hands, and they can perform the same miracles of
healing that Jesus performed in the bible. In the East Village, a
center of counter-culture ideas, it is hard to find anyone who believes
in faith healing. In fact, most young people would laugh at such an
idea. Yet, these same skeptics line up to be psychically healed by a
practitioner of Reiki, without asking a single question or raising any
of the objections that a Christian preacher would hear.
This selective blindness isn’t limited to faith. There are Americans
who have a deep-rooted mistrust of Western medicine, and understandably
so. More and more news about the dangers of prescription drugs appear
every day. According to the American Heart Association, “Adverse drug
reactions (ADRs) may be the 4th to 6th leading cause of death.” Yet,
many American who can quote this disturbing statistic and more will
accept the guidance of a practitioner of Chinese medicine without
question.
The United States Government is banning the sale of a Chinese herbal
remedy known here as ephedra. The herb has been linked to over 155
deaths. Despite the warnings and the deaths, there has been an increase
in sales of Ephedra since the government announced a pending ban on the
herbal supplement. Why would people who are concerned by the risks of
Western medicine ignore the risks of a Chinese herbal supplement? One
reason I often hear is that Chinese medicine has been practiced for
5,000 years. Perhaps in a country that has only existed for a few
hundred years, something that has existed for thousands of years seems
more authentic.
It’s not that I’m opposed to the practice of Feng Sui, herbal medicine, acupuncture, or Zen.
People are entitled to believe and practice whatever they choose. What
does disturb me is the complete lack of scrutiny these practices
receive, simply because they come from the East.
• Posted by kind permission of the author
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