Mind body connection

Many years ago I was taking my Master’s degree in biochemistry at Imperial College in England under the Nobel Prize winner Sir Ernst B. Chain. A friend told me that there was this psychiatrist who needed research volunteers for some hypnosis work that he was doing.

We would get five pounds for being tested and if we passed we would go into a long term study and get even more money. I was a very inquisitive person at the time – thank God this has not changed – and would have done the test for free but a little extra pocket money was always welcome too.

So it was that we went to the offices of Dr. Stephen Black in Knightsbridge . The good doctor first demonstrated hypnosis on one of his patients. He was interested in psychosomatic effects in allergies. The lady in question was what he called a deep trance subject, meaning that she entered a deep state of hypnosis (trance) very easily. She was also allergic to a certain pollen.

As it happened a couple of days earlier we had studied the biochemistry of the immune system and allergies. It was so simple. It was a chemical reaction of adding a to b and getting c. The brain could not intervene in what was basically a local interaction at the site of the allergen entering the body and causing the allergic reaction.

Dr. Black hypnotized the lady and told her that he would place a drop of distilled water on her left arm and a drop containing the pollen she was allergic to on the right arm. Then he brought her out of the trance and placed a drop of distilled water on her right arm. Immediately there was a pink bump where the distilled water had been added. This did not surprise me. I could imagine how the brain could send signals to the capillaries of the skin to expand and mimic the allergic response.

Next the psychiatrist placed a drop of the allergen on the other arm. There was absolutely no reaction. OK this made no sense to me at all. As I have written we were taught that this was a two plus two makes four situation. But in this case two plus two made some other number – lets say zero. No redness, no bump, no itching skin, nothing.

At that moment I understood that there was much more to reality than my traditional Western education understood. I remained a scientist but started examining at other ways of looking at the world as well. I studied different alternative medicine and thoughts. I became an open minded skeptic. That’s to say I do not accept or reject anything out of hand without attempting to discover the truth.

The reality is that Western science works brilliantly and many alternative ways of thought are total nonsense either promoted by charlatans or ignorant well meaning people. I am not totally sure what is the difference. If an idea is wrong (especially if it is dangerous) it is wrong even if the proponent is well meaning.

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