“Healing in the Gospels” by Alfred Heidenreich presents some very original thinking about the nature of illness and disease, but it also posits some fascinating insights about our culture. He begins by describing some of the healing events described in the Gospels and relieves us of many of the common, literal or metaphorical interpretations of them. He helps us to look at what illness itself is representative of and therefore how a cure could come about. Mr. Heidenreich points out that the illnesses of Christ’s time are different from ones that affect mankind today. In fact, man’s entire constitution was so much less dense and material that simply being in the presence of Christ was sufficient in many cases to bring balance, harmony and healing to many people. In other cases, he postulates the illness was reflective of an individual’s karma, or weaving karma between two people. He reveals that disease stems from the primal experience of the Fall and the imbalances caused by the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman in our bodies. But illness today is given to us by the spiritual world, as a crisis through which the opportunity can arise for our higher Ego or Christ self to be born.  Ultimately, both then and now, Christ is the healer, the redeemer of the fallen state of man.

Alfred Hedenreich discussed cancer as a preeminent disease of our times. He described two phases of the cancers life. First, the rampant growth phase, crowding out access to nutrients and even strangulating healthy cells. This wild, unconfined expansive phase is followed by gross cell death which poisons the body with toxins released by decay. The loss of the proper restraint that prevents individual cells from becoming ‘egomaniacs’, he suggests, is a reflection of the sickness in our society today. He posits that our life forces are constantly over stimulated, but seldom able to really digest anything. So many sense impressions that are ultimately lies. So much food, that is devoid of living forces. So much information but no truth or wisdom… Our senses become corrupted and we develop addictions for substances that harm us and lead us further from what our bodies need.

In this way, we develop a displaced hunger for life that runs amuck and goes scavenging for substance. These ‘displaced life forces’ can cause the eruption of cancerous cells. He describes cancer therefore, as a social illness and it’s victims may be taking on the disease, not because it is their karma, but because someone needs to stand in the wake of this tide that is threatening to become a tsunami in the modern world. The ultimate cure to cancer would involve a total reorientation of our society to real food, real work that is meaningful, real sense impressions that nourish the soul and deepening the ties of community so that we see ourselves in each other and love everyone as ourselves. Basically, we need to change our world utterly to heal ourselves.

He intuits that cancer may be to the physical body what a bi-polar disorder is to the soul. In cancer, death occurs because the boundaries of healthy tissue function are ruptured. There is no room left for life.  In the bi-polar patient, there is an expansive or manic phase of super rampant life forces, and then a depression, where all thoughts turn towards death. Mental illness is the shadow of cancer – but both stem from life forces that are out of balance. Our sensory system is out of balance, seeing death impersonating as life everywhere. We lack real challenges for our body and soul. Work where we are mere cogs in a machine can’t be satisfying to the whole person, just as eating fast food isn’t satisfying to our body. Our culture is built on lies but our body is built on truth.  And this may be the ultimate reason why we are so sick. Egoism runs wild in our cells, in our souls, and can only be restrained by Christ. Healing requires that we turn away from all that is false and seek what is true. Christ in Community is the antidote. Loving each other as we love our selves is more than a truism, it may be the key for our healing as a species.