Donald M. Epstein - Healing Myths, Healing Magic

S pecial thanks for the wisdom, compassion, love and wit of my wife, Jackie, for her creation of the books title, her help with the many facets of this project, and her unwavering support and patience.

With deep appreciation for the painstaking labor of my editor, Janet Mills, the CEO of Amber Allen Publishing. Her guidance, persistence, vision, and perseverance helped birth this culture-bending book.

My gratitude to Nathaniel Altman for editing with understanding and elegance. His insights were vital and germane to the process.

I wish to thank the thousands of individuals whom I have attended to whose comments and questions, concerns, passions, healing, and crises showed me the need for Healing Magic.

I also wish to thank the thousands of doctors, patients, and practice members who have trusted and applied my ideas, concepts, and methods.

Thank you to Daniel David Palmer, Candace Pert, Ph.D., Ken Wilber, Drs. Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra, Daniel Quinn, Sondra Ray, and Don Campbell for your brilliant insights into the bodymind and consciousness, which provided substantial nourishment for this book and for my soul.

Grazie Papa to Padre Eligio, whose manifestation of healing magic in the lives of so many in his communities is a continuing source of inspiration to me.

Thank you to my very wise and loving father, Carl, for his consistent encouragement and guidance over the years. Thanks to my late mother-in-law, Louise, who loved each child as if they were the only one, and to my father-in-law, Jack, who continues to teach me about service.

A very special thank you to my children, Debra, David, Louise, Daniel, and Richelle, for their love and support and for the special gifts they each bring to our family. And to Alison and John Michael and my office family for holding down the fort while I travel and teach, helping provide the freedom I needed to complete this project.

Magic is nature unimpeded.

The Way Toward Health by Jane Roberts

T here was a time, not too long ago, when our ancestors believed that the sun and the moon, the rivers and the forests, were sacred. The changing of the seasons, the rise and fall of the tides, and other rhythms of Mother Earth were sacred. Through story, dance, or song, all children knew the history of their people. They knew tales of creation and myths of belonging in a world where there was a place for them. Children would beg their grandmother, Nanna, tell me that story again. Their roles in life were guided by a rich tradition of folktales, legends, and myths.

The word myth is derived from the Latin term mythos, or story. The prevailing myths or stories of a society are considered its norm or reality, and our myths are sacred. Throughout human history, people have been ridiculed, ostracized, and severely punished for nothing more than questioning or challenging a cultural hallucination or myth of their time. By questioning the myth that all celestial bodies revolved around the Earth, Galileo Galilei (15641642) was branded a heretic by the Church, and forced to renounce his belief on his knees before being thrown into prison for life. After a seven-year trial by the Inquisition, the Italian scientist Giordano Bruno (15481600) was burned at the stake for questioning the same myth as Galileo, and also for proposing that the sun itself may not be the center of the universe.

Our culture and its stories largely determine the manner in which we experience the world and our place within it. Our stories tell us how we are to live our lives, including how we should relate to others. Stories or myths not only provide a context through which we see our place in the world, but also set the foundation for how our physiology will respond to lifes challenges. In practical terms, myths help us interpret and respond to our circumstances, situations, and crises.

Our body and mind which are so interrelated that I consider them together as bodymind are deeply affected by the myths we accept without question. When our bodymind experiences a new situation or challenge, it resorts to the most familiar story about the situation the story depicting what we expect will happen. If we have a headache or back pain, if our spouse walks out on us, or if our car is damaged in an accident, our physiology responds with a story about how things are supposed to be. Then we match our experience to our expectations. It does not matter if the story is true; our bodymind responds from the place of a deep cultural hallucination, which for most of us means a deep sleep.

Just as the prevailing story accepted by a culture without question is considered normal existence or reality, that of another culture is considered strange, comical, stupid, or dangerous. We are biased against anything that is at variance with our story. If the beliefs or values we unconsciously accept are challenged, we may react with anger, rage, resentment, frustration, or depression. Often, we will reject an idea or treatment because it doesnt feel good, because it is weird, or because it creates anxiety as it clashes with a prevailing myth. Even when we are told that a particular treatment, practice, or dietary supplement is beneficial for our health and well-being, our physiology is likely to ignore or reject it if the idea is foreign to our prevailing myths.

For example, if an expectant mother in our culture is told about a simple procedure she can follow after her baby is born that will restore lost nutrients, improve her immune system, facilitate the transportation of antibodies to her baby through breast milk, speed up her recovery, and is free of charge, she is likely to say, Yes! Ill do it. Tell me what it is. If the woman is then told to eat her babys placenta, or afterbirth, she will immediately respond with Ugh. Thats disgusting! No, thank you! The womans mind and body tell her, Its a myth; it cant be! It is also possible that her bodymind will declare, This doesnt feel right to me, which brings up another myth: that something has to feel right to be good for us.

When we are frightened, confused, or lost in despair, we often turn to our myth spinners to give meaning to our experience. In native cultures, such individuals are usually shamans and other types of healers and magicians. In contemporary Western society, teachers, doctors, therapists, clergy, attorneys, and legislators are among the socially empowered storytellers or myth spinners of our time. Taking its cues from these authority figures, our society then legislates and enforces the prevailing myths to protect us from harm.