The Healing Power of Illness
The Meaning of Symptoms
& How to Interpret Them
By
Thorwald Dethlefsen
ILLNESS AND SYMPTOMS:
In reality, the body is never ill or healthy — it expresses messages from our consciousness. For its operation, the body of a living person depends on two immaterial entities — consciousness (soul) and life (spirit). Consciousness presents us with messages that are manifested in the body and are eventually made visible. Since consciousness (soul) is immaterial and self-sufficient in its own right, it is neither a product of the body (physical entity) nor dependent on its existence. When bodily functions are working together in a particular way, an overall pattern emerges which is harmonious and referred to as “health”. If a particular function goes wrong, it compromises the overall harmony to a greater or lesser extent, and we call the result “illness”. Illness takes place within consciousness at the informational level, and, then, manifests itself in the body. Therefore, if a person’s consciousness falls into imbalance, this becomes visible and tangible in the form of bodily symptoms — only people can be ill, not the body. The illness shows up in symptomatic form within the body. Symptoms are all expressions of one and the same event which we call “illness”, which always occurs within a person’s consciousness (soul), not body (physical entity).
Psychic (psychological) and somatic (body) can be applied at a level at which a symptom appears, but cannot be used to locate illness itself. To summarize — illness is a human condition which indicates that the patient is no longer in harmony at the level of consciousness. The loss of inner balance manifests itself in the body as a symptom, which is a signal and a vehicle of information, forcing us to give the symptom our attention. The symptom tells us that we are sick souls — we have lost our inner, psychological balance.
POLARITY AND UNITY:
The moment we say the word “I”, we become prisoners of polarity (the splitting apart of unity by human consciousness into polar opposites). The “I” shackles us to the world of opposites, which is divided not only into “I” and “you”, but also into inner and outer, man and woman, good and bad, right and wrong, etc. Our ego (“I”) makes it impossible for us to perceive unity or wholeness. Our consciousness splits and dissects everything into pairs of opposites, which we experience as conflicts. We are then forced to decide (make a choice), and come to a decision. We say ‘yes’ to the one and ‘no’ to its opposite, reinforcing our un-whole-ness. Illness and healing are connected with the concept of polarity. Behind the polarity that we encounter as human beings, there stands a unity, also referred to as the ‘All’ (which includes everything — therefore there can be nothing outside this unity). It is not the world, but the consciousness with which we view the world, that is polar. Polarity is like a door that has ‘Entrance’ written on one side of it and ‘Exit’ on the other. Depending upon how we approach it, we see only one of these twin aspects of it. Associated with polarity is the division between the conscious mind and the unconscious; the left hemisphere of the brain (masculine, Yang, active, etc.) and the right hemisphere of the brain (feminine, Yin, passive, etc.). Polarity brings with it the inability to consider both aspects of a whole at the same time. All paths of healing lead from polarity to unity, and, healing means moving closer to being whole. The two poles of polarity are mutually dependent upon each other — it is impossible to hang on to one while abolishing the other (promoting health and fighting illness, preserving peace by abolishing war, staying alive by defeating death).
THE SHADOW:
The shadow is the rejected aspects of reality which we either cannot or will not see within ourselves, and of which we are therefore un-conscious. It is our greatest threat, because it is always there even though we do not know it or recognize it. It is the shadow that sees to it that all our efforts and purposes eventually turn into their opposites. We project all that emerges from our shadow onto some anonymous evil in the world, out there, because we are afraid to discover within ourselves the true source of all that is un-holy (negative). Everything that we do not want or approve of originates in our own shadow, yet our refusal to recognize this part of our reality, and live it out, is precisely what ensures that we never get what we hope for. What we reject, we must live out — in flesh and blood. The shadow is what makes us ill – but, the encounter with our shadow makes us well. We humans, as microcosms, are reflections of the universe, containing all principles of being within our consciousness. Our path of polarities (the negative and positive) forces us to manifest these principles that are latent within us, so we can become more aware of ourselves. But recognition demands polarity, which forces us constantly to make decisions, therefore splitting polarity into an accepted (positive) and rejected (negative) pole. The accepted aspect is translated into behavior and integrated at the conscious level, while the rejected pole is banished to the shadow demanding our attention. Illness is a specific and common result of this general law, and is expressed as symptoms. Via the body, each symptom forces us to manifest some principle we have deliberately chosen not to live out, and so brings us back into balance. The symptom is the physical, bodily expression of whatever is lacking in our consciousness. It makes visible that which we have repressed.
ILLNESS IS IN OUR NATURE:
We do not become ill – we are ill. As long as we partake of polarity, we also partake of guilt, illness and death. It is our refusal to admit them, and our insistence on judging and resisting them, that are our mortal foes. We are ill because we lack oneness. By ‘ill’ we mean incomplete, insecure, vulnerable and mortal. Illness cannot be avoided or abolished. We humans are inherently conflict-ridden — thereby, ill. Illness is in our nature. The goal of illness is ‘healing’ — becoming whole, or one. Along the road to healing, self-knowledge, and becoming whole, difficulties and errors constantly arise. We have termed these subconscious aspects of ourselves the ‘shadow’, and it is through our disease symptoms that the shadow demonstrates itself, and makes itself known. Looking for causes diverts our attention from the real message.
THE INTERPRETATION OF SYMPTOMS:
Rule 1: In interpreting symptoms, ignore all apparent causal relationships at the functional level. All that is important is that things are and how they are — not why they are.
Rule 2: Determine the exact point in time that each symptom appeared. Inquire into life-situation, thoughts, fantasies, dreams, events and items of news that went to make up the symptom’s temporal framework.
Rule 3: Consider the principle from the symptomatology, and apply this pattern on the psychological level. Listening to the way things are said will often turn out to be the key.
Rule 4: Question — “What is the symptom stopping me from doing?” Question — “What is the symptom making me do?” This will generally lead directly to the area of the illness’s central theme.
The following table represents seven degrees of symptom escalation:
1. Psychological phenomena (thoughts, wishes, fantasies)
2. Functional disturbances
3. Acute physical disturbances (inflammation, wounds, minor accidents)
4. Chronic conditions
5. Incurable processes, physical changes, cancer
6. Death (through illness or accident)
7. Congenital deformities and conditions (Karma).
It should be known that before a problem shows up in the body as a symptom, it makes its presence known in the psyche as a theme, idea, wish or fantasy. The positive approach is to be more open and receptive toward our unconscious impulses. Denial of these impulses begins the journey from one degree of escalation to the next where symptoms are concerned.
SUMMARY:
1. Human consciousness is bi-polar. On the one hand this allows us to become self-aware, on the other it makes us un-whole and incomplete.
2. Illness is in our nature. Disease is the expression of our incompleteness and is unavoidable in the context of polarity.
3. Human illness embodies itself in symptoms. Symptoms are parts of our consciousness’s shadow and have been precipitated into physical form.
4. Each of us as a microcosm contains within our consciousness all principles of a macrocosm. Since we only identify ourselves with one half of each principle, the other half is relegated to the shadow, and is unknown to us.
5. Any principle that is not lived out (experienced) in reality will insist on its rights to life and existence via the medium as physical symptoms. In our symptoms we are constantly forced to experience and realize those things that we least want to. This is how symptoms make up for all imbalances.
6. Symptoms make us honest!
7. Healing is made possible only by making ourselves aware of those hidden aspects of ourselves that are our shadow, and integrating them.
8. The aim of healing is wholeness and oneness. We are whole the moment we finally discover our true self and become one with all that is.