What is a quantum doctor? A quantum doctor is a practitioner of medicine who knows the fallacies of the Newtonian classical physics-based deterministic worldview that was discarded in physics many decades ago. A quantum doctor is grounded in the world-view of the new physics, also called quantum physics. And there is more. Quantum doctors bring the message of quantum physics alive in their practice of medicine.
Consciousness comes first
You may wonder: What difference does a worldview make in the practice of medicine? In contrast to the classical physics world-view in which the world is seen as a mechanical, determined machine, we cannot even make sense of quantum physics unless we ground it in the primacy of consciousness: Consciousness comes first; it is the ground of all being. Everything else, including matter, is a possibility of consciousness. And consciousness chooses out of these possibilities all the events we experience.
Now do you see? Physicians of the old ilk of classical physics aficionados practice machine medicine, designed for machines (that is the picture of the patient in the classical worldview) and by machines (the physicians who are self-avowed machines). And make no mistake about it, the medicine that the patient gets, allopathic medicine, is also of a mechanical nature, with chemical drugs, mechanical surgery or organ transplant, and energy radiation. A quantum doctor, on the other hand, practices conscious medicine designed for people, not machines. What conscious medicine prescribes includes the mechanical but extends also to the domains of vitality and meaning, even love. And most important, as practitioners of conscious medicine the quantum doctors bring consciousness to their practice.
Admittedly, the quantum doctor is right now only an idea developed in this article, an idea you are probably reading about for the first time. But if the idea is here, and as I will show, it is an idea with much integrative power, can the manifestation of the idea be far behind? In fact, a partial manifestation of the idea is age-old and continues to the present era.
I am talking about practitioners of what today is called alternative or complementary medicine, including the age-old systems of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda (developed in India), spiritual healing, the more recent homeopathy, and the very recent mind-body medicine. Alternative medicine practitioners go partway toward being quantum doctors. Their medical systems are designed for conscious beings, and they do have more dimensions than the mechanical. Unfortunately, alternative medicine practitioners suffer from considerable amounts of worldview confusion.
Machine medicine
Although our culture promotes the ‘great’ advancements of machine medicine all the time, still many people are disillusioned with it. Partly, it is because we all miss the conscious human touch that we expect from a healer. Partly, it is because, its ‘miracles’ notwithstanding’, allopathic medicine doesn’t work well for the bulk of our day-to-day medical problems – the chronic ailments, for example. And it is because machine medicine and mechanical procedures are very expensive.
So although the machinists in medicine are openly scornful of alternative practices, alternative medicine is gaining in popularity. Unfortunately, this only aggravates the reaction of the conventional allopathic practitioners. Before, allopaths could afford benign neglect. But now, as their bread and butter is threatened, for many of them it is all-out war against alternative medicine. Alternative medicine is voodoo medicine, they declare.
If the world is machine, mind is machine, and even the soul is machine, as some observers contend, then how can anything but machine medicine have any validity?
Alternative medicine practitioners also strike back. Let’s note just two of their criticisms. Allopathic drugs have harmful side effects, they point out. Why should we unnecessarily poison the body? Allopathic procedures such as vaccinations administered when we are children weaken the immune system so much that we become more vulnerable to disease later in life. Why should we accept such procedures without questioning them?
Can’t we end this war?
We all are interested in health and healing, in our physical well-being. We all search for it when we don’t have it. But with the sharp division of medicine into two camps – conventional and alternative – it is increasingly difficult to choose the proper healing method when we need it. What criteria should we use for such a choice? Is a combination of healing techniques better than any one technique? What should we do to maintain our health, to prevent disease in the first place? Can we heal ourselves without any physical or chemical instruments of healing?
The answers to such questions depend on whom you ask. Are at least some of the stories of spontaneous healing true? Some experts answer yes. But is spontaneous healing accessible to all of us? Experts from some medical traditions nod yes, while others stubbornly shake their heads no.
When we are middle-aged or old, are we to feel fortunate if we suffer from only a few chronic diseases, without any major life-threatening illness? Should we accept stress and lack of vitality as the price we must pay for modern living? Maybe so, some experts say. Why is economics such an important consideration for health and healing? We are sorry, say the experts. Is medicine only about pathology? Can we not strive for positive health where vitality and well-being reign supreme? We don’t know, say the experts.
Truth is, we cannot begin to answer such questions with much credibility without developing an integral paradigm that embraces all medical systems that have adequate clinical data to support their efficacy. We must end the current confusion of paradigms that pervades medicine.
Never fear, the quantum doctor is here. The quantum doctor, like his or her worldview, is integrative. And I am convinced that when medicine is formulated within the integral metaphysics of the primacy of consciousness, conventional (allopathic) medicine and alternative medicine can be reconciled. Not only that, their different domains of applicability, even their interrelationships, will be clearly understood.
An inclusive paradigm
But if you want to build an inclusive paradigm, how do you join contradictory philosophies? You need an inclusive philosophy. This inclusive philosophy – a metaphysics based on the primacy of consciousness in this age of science – is the gift of quantum physics and is the philosophy of the quantum doctor. In quantum physics, what we normally perceive as ‘things’ are seen to be not things; instead they are seen to be possibilities for consciousness to choose from. This single idea has the potency to integrate all the disparate philosophies underlying the different schools of medicine. And more. It has the potency to validate your particular search for healing and show you how to achieve it.
From The Quantum Doctor, © 2011 by Amit Goswami, published by Hampton Roads.
