by Eunice J Minford MA FRCS Ed, Consultant Surgeon, N.Ireland
Evidenced based medicine currently dominates the Western model but who decides what is ‘evidence’? Is it being controlled and limited by academia and /or commercial interests? Is anecdotal evidence of a person’s lived experience a valid form of evidence? If a person reports that their life has changed for the better as a result of an operation, a medication or a complementary healing modality – is that in itself a valid form of evidence? We are trained in medical school that the history of the patient is most important and where the gold lies…….why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover? This interview with Serge Benhayon, begins the conversation on these topics.
Disclaimer: The topics covered in this interview go beyond what is accepted in the current paradigm of evidenced based Western Medicine and it is for the viewer to discern if what is shared is true or could possibly be true or not. Eunice Minford is a Consultant General Surgeon who works in the NHS in accordance with the principles of Western Medicine. She has a personal interest in exploring beyond the current paradigm of Western Medicine and has studied Esoteric Philosophy and Sacred Esoteric Healing with Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. Esoteric Medicine understands life, illness and disease at the level of energy.
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
Watching this video has opened up how and where research dictates to us in how we live, and yet countless numbers of people have changed their lives because of changing the way they live. And because it is a personal experience, it is considered not of value. The way we conduct research needs to be researched too. Who is to say that research itself is 100% fool proof?
I have been a research assistant and I know that when I was tired, as an example, my ability to perform my duty to the job dropped and I know the research was sabotaged or affected in some way. But there is a way of making the research at times, fit the outcome. This maybe just a small example, but how do we know this hasn’t occurred in other research? Worth pondering over.
There are more and more people experiencing changes/improvements in their lives and these experiences should not be discarded and could be used as a reference point at some point as well.
There is more to research than meets the eye…
It simply doesn’t make sense to me that someone’s direct experience and how they are feeling would be so easily dismissed. When we value the mind much more over the body we are disconnecting from truth. It is from the body that we receive universal intelligence not the mind.
It is a bizarre set up that we can tell a doctor about symptoms and that is considered valid anecdotal evidence, but not in other situations like testimonials for modalities like Universal Medicine therapies. It does feel very imposing on my basic human rights to tell me what is or isn’t evidence. For example, the Australian government recently made changes around complementary therapies and private health rebates claiming there was no evidence for certain therapies, including naturopathy, so they could not be supported by private health funds, which I found outrageous. This apparently came about through the influence of scientists who back this limited idea of evidence. I spend money on what works for me and if I feel something is not supporting me I don’t go back and invest more money. The evidence of how things work is easily felt in my own body and the way I live. Thanks for this great video.
Melinda, I can recall sharing with an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, how my body reacts to cheese and its effects on my ears and I would become more mucousy. He wasn’t receptive to this, however he went on to share that he had a patient who’s ears reacted when they ate eggs, and evidence suggested that this shouldn’t be the case…
I feel there was enough evidence per the body’s personal experience, that’s enough evidence to say I need to support my body differently now. That’s my randomised trial…
I remember being tested twice for Coeliac disease because I could feel how gluten was disrupting my health. The tests showed I didn’t have the disease however I decided that my body didn’t need their confirmation and I trusted that something else was going on and perhaps one day science might catch up to validate what was occurring but I wasn’t going to wait – I eliminated gluten and the results were very beneficial for my body. Everyday is actually a living science.
Anecdotal evidence is ok in some areas but not all others. The why being so simply stated in this conversation, it can’t be controlled. The answers the body gives cannot be controlled by the mind and this causes tension when we try to direct life as per the mind’s demands. It’s so not worth it however it does take a while to not only admit such but to surrender and follow in line with the body.
What I can feel from this is how the so-called intelligence of our brain is the very thing that reduces and limits the vastness our body can appreciate and relate to. It’s like our mind gives up and demands explanation when it cannot compute the wordless intelligence of the body.
It is simple… every human being if they are genuinely open can feel the benefits of something that supports them and what’s more important is that they have every right to have that choice just as every body is listened to by a doctor; it is no different.
There is a big difference between saying something is not true and something has not been tested or even studied or proven. As discussed in this interview often the two are mixed up. There are so many things that we cannot prove beyond a doubt in this world with our current research models but this does not mean they are not true. We need to keep an open mind and not narrow things down when it comes to research, science and medicine.
The truth is a constant terminal. The fact of not having arrived at it doesn’t negate it, it simply means we haven’t arrived at it.
How can we listen to a human being that shares their symptoms of what is going on in their body and yet dismiss that those same symptoms get better by receiving the Esoteric modalities? Could there be something at play here when we choose what we want to hear and dismiss that which we perhaps find uncomfortable and unsettling? – a reflection of truth that brings it back to taking responsibility for our health and wellbeing?
If I tell my GP i’m depressed it’s evidence, but if I tell them i’m feeling amazing with not drugs or stimulants suddenly i’m not impartial enough… the craziness of the system is quite something.
I am living anecdotal evidence thanks to Universal Medicine and the amazing results of the esoteric modalities. My life right now and how I feel is a 1000 x times better than how I used to feel.
That is a great point made here that we value the ‘patient story’ in terms of examination and finding out what the problem or issue is, but when it comes to so called ‘evidence based medicine’ or ‘research’ we devalue the patient experience and consider them untrustworthy or biased sources. But surely someone is going to be an expert on their own life and health as they have lived and breathed every minute of it?
“We are trained in medical school that the history of the patient is most important and where the gold lies… why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover?” – great question, and that is so true.
Have we not all at some point questioned a coincidence which really does not seem like a coincidence. We have a dream, or something happens and we think: “my god, this must mean something”. This is us questioning the non-physical, and bringing an awareness to what is not yet accepted as common knowledge within our society.
With this interview, I am beginning to understand that anecdotal evidence is our voice, it is the truth of the lives that we live and as such, it cannot be owned by anyone else.
Exactly Doug… when the energetic interplay of what is actually happening all around us is more understood, anecdotal evidence will take its rightful place.
Simple and cheaper medicines – be they alternative or complementary – don’t get research funding because the money isn’t there to do the research. This doesn’t mean these forms of medicine are not supportive for the public. Indeed many conventional medicines have their roots in natural herbs and spices, but have been tweaked so they can be patented and make money for Big Pharma.
“…. who decides what is ‘evidence’? Is it being controlled and limited by academia and /or commercial interests?” Such a pertinent question as ‘evidence’ is now arising of the bias and funding that some research programmes have together with the non-publication at the time of invested financial interests of the researchers.
The quality of any-thing and everything is determined by the energy that set it up in the first place. Every-thing is either set up by the pranic consciousness, a consciousness that is intent on permanently bolstering the illusion of separation or set up by a divine consciousness that is forever calling us back the the Oneness that we all actually are. Research is no different to anything else, it is either from the All for the All or it’s not.
If we have to wait for science to prove everything we can be waiting a long time as we have seen many times before in history. Often people that have been ridiculed at the time for what their viewpoints of life were have been proven by science to be true long long after the fact and with a lot of harm done in the mean time.
To dismiss someone’s life experience, which includes healing a health condition, just because it hasn’t gone through endless trials, is not only an insult to the person but also denies others who may have a similar condition knowing that the healing they are looking for is actually possible. How can anyone with a degree of common sense insist that a profound healing experience is not evidence-based medicine? But there are those who do, and the whole world misses out.
I absolutely agree Doug, that those with “vested interests do so much damage in this world”, and usually for the sake of profit or in some cases identification and recognition. But it seems to me that in both cases, the agenda of the ‘investor’ totally overrides the care, respect and welfare of others.
The anecdotal evidence of how so many people’s lives have changed as a result of the Esoteric Modalities, is not limited to function alone, as there has been whole life shifts in health, in the true and broadest sense of these words. And this is what makes Universal Medicine so complete, because the person is supported to heal.
That is such a good question – why is a person’s experience only valid in one area – surely if the way we live has got us sick then there is a natural assumption that the way we live could also influence how we get better.
Currently, evidence based medicine appears to dismiss the person that is the basis of the evidence.
It’s very evident that we tend to ignore the facts we don’t like. Our research is more like justification for prejudice than being open to the truth.
We seem to discount people’s experience because scientifically it can not be proven, however if there are many people with the same experience there has to be something in it, and science will eventually realise that there needs to be more acceptance within science even if it can not as yet be proven.
Evidence Based Medicine has created a tight control around who has the right to say they have the truth and who hasn’t. Can money buy truth? No, it can’t but certainly is dictating to us what we can research and what becomes accepted ‘truth’.
I wonder sometimes if the output or the useable results from medical research are becoming less and less, especially when one looks at the results per dollar spent? The current response seems to be to make research more and more complicated and difficult but is that the right response?
Evidence based medicine has its place, but we need to acknowledge it’s limitations instead of hanging our hat on it, as though it is the one and only reliable source. Acknowledging the vested interests and control of research through funding is a key part of this. These things stifle genuine enquiry and new ways of perceiving health issues.
When we look at evidence we tend to dwell on the symptoms we experience not the true cause of our malaise.
In other words we are only interested in the quick fix, rather than what our part is in developing the condition and how we can ‘live our way’ back to health.
One reason is that we don’t have very good tools to find causes.
Dismissing the experiences of what has helped people recover is to then deny that same assistance to the recovery process to so many others. It makes no sense that people’s personal testimonies are relied upon to ascertain what made them ill, but then rejected when it comes to their recovery process.
How can a person be respected, listened to and validated when sharing part of their experience in life and yet be discounted at the same time when they share their experience and account in another area in their life? Evidence is evidence and so the control being orchestrated behind the scenes needs to be challenged. We can do this through our living way – the Way of The Livingness, and its reflection to others.
There is a whole lot more we can readily understand of ourselves when we choose to honestly listen to our bodies and accept and take responsibility for what is harming or supporting ourselves by the way we are living for therein lies the real evidence. Thank-you Eunice for sharing this much needed interview it offers us much to reflect on.
I agree, it is so much to do with what level of responsibility we are prepared to consider we have for our own health and well-being. If we think we can do whatever we want and someone else has to clear up after us then that will apply to how we behave, think both to ourselves and to others.
The dumbing down of words we use has disconnected them to truth, leaving us to use them like confetti. But then what are we saying? Nothing more than blah, blah, blah – if we want connection, love, care, nurturing and understanding we need to share more depth than that.
Words have become so bastardised and are used so randomly with little care in the levels of integrity. Thank you Eunice for offering another perspective for the world to view.
If medics are trained in medical school that the history of the patient is most important and where the gold lies, then why indeed is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover? – A great point you bring here Eunice and thoroughly addressed by Serge in this video. Very important to raise this, and keep raising it.
Every day every thing is giving us super clear evidence of our relationship to truth. We’ve just invented a world where abuse is normal to circumvent this. It doesn’t work.
The word evidence is heavily associated with science – in that it is all about proving cause and effect and incorporating research and statistics – but at the expense of not seeing the body as our own living experiment and evidence. The fact is we can constantly explore how our bodies respond based on how we are living.
Agreed. We have all the evidence we need within our own bodies. We just have to take notice of it and learn to listen and trust it. All too often we like to give our power away to the medical profession to tell us what condition we have and what we should do. It’s important to ask for the support we need from them, but we can know and do so much for ourselves too.
Great conversation to be having, thank you Dr. Eunice Minford for the light that you’re shining on this topic, it is much needed.
We discount others and what they say just like we discount our body. Love ourselves and our body and we cannot discount what others say
Anecdotal evidence is a living truth. You cannot tell me something is not true if I have felt and experienced it in and from my own body.
What a genius question which I had never even considered – when patients come through their doctors door, they report the symptoms: “my stomach hurts here”, “I felt sick last night”, etc. So, when a patient comes through and says “my god, as a result of having a rhythm every evening before going to bed, I have a better sleep”…
No one could ever say to me that the treatments and healing that has occurred through me surrendering to the Universal Medicine modalities have not been supportive or life changing. What I have felt, the clearing, releasing and the activation of the essence of my particles have been profound. I have never felt so amazing before in my life, ever.
Embracing all facets of our intelligence will bring us back to true wisdom. At present we have a very limited view of intelligence that champions only academic achievement and leaves us in the bereft position of having to have more and more areas of our lives reliant on and restricted by evidence based research.
As far as I am aware it is usual for research to ignore statistical anomalies and most of my friends are anomalies because they are bucking the trend – they are living healthy lives, are slim, joy-full, have good relationships or are happy being single, their eyes are clear, they don’t drink alcohol, and in fact they don’t do a lot of things most people would call ‘normal’.
There has been several things about science that has always baffled and disappointed me. Why ignore anomalies??
Of course if the purpose of our research was just to record what the average trend is fair enough. But no one is owning up to the fact that at best this is exactly what we are doing. And often the range of “average” is tampered with to get the “desired” financial results.
The pretense is that we do want to expand our understanding, increase the level of our health and resolve our societal issues, whilst the refusal to look at and consider examples that show we are selling ourselves short is evidence (pun intended) that there is clearly another agenda at play.
Indeed if something is truly working for someone and they are greatly improving their lives and how they are because of it, why do we need evidence to back up what they say? It is more a sign that there is a lack of trust and openness within us as a species where hard facts are needed instead regardless of how sincere and true a person actually is.
If we truly want to heal wouldn’t we look at every possibility to understand what is going on, rather than pursuing proving what we think we know?
This is a great question, Joseph. How many times do I find myself repeating questions and only accepting the answer I want to hear, the one that suits me? This is no different to the way we conduct research, finding a way to ‘prove’ what we want to believe.
Evidence to me is everything we feel, everything we see. Yet so often in today’s research we focus on just a little part of life. And so what we understand is little too. If we truly want the truth, we need to be willing to see everything without agenda.
We consider that evidence needs to reduce everything to one measurable aspect that excludes other co-founding variables. Unfortunately when we exclude the whole or system that holds a part we only observe a small fraction of what is occurring.
Our body is our evidence to our true health and lived quality and this is the real evidence needed today in times of such ill health and crisis in the health system and health workers let alone the patients. The truth needs to be seen and the true evidence is there in front of us and simply makes sense.
We have to bring evidence back to where it was designed for and that is for the true well-being of people. So yes we need to test new medicines and we have to test them very well, but we also need to be listening to anything and everything that is truly working for someone in what ever way it is delivered, be it a research or a person’s experience. When it is for the benefit of all it does not matter in what way it comes and I feel we have to be more open to this.
Corruption alone is concerning but it is even more concerning when those that are acting out such corruption do not even realise just how corrupt their actions truly are.
As long as a word is owned it cannot be true for the level of corruption we have built is unfathomable to the eye of the beholder of truth.
The control of evidence seems like a control on communication between people. Like there are limits and conditions to how we share our experiences because what is experienced is deemed as only valid under certain circumstances.
I have experience of the doctors and Medical specialists not prepared to listen to my approach to Endometriosis. When I had my first operation they found Endometriosis all on my right side it had gone into the cavity in my body and was stuck on my intestines. I did not take the advice of the specialists at the time as they recommended using male hormones to stop my periods for a year. There were side effects and they sounded horrible so instead I sought the help of a Chinese Herbalist. Not fully appreciating at the time that my body was sending me very loud and clear messages about the way I was living that it clearly didn’t like. I didn’t listen all I wanted was for the constant ache in my right side to go away. So for a year took some quite ghastly herbal medication that had to be boiled and the house stank of this concoction. After a year I went back for another operation and they discovered the Endometriosis had cleared up so much they we taken aback and I had a team of specialist from different hospitals wanting to know how I had been living and what I had been doing. When I told them I had been taking Traditional Chinese herbal medicine along with acupuncture, they were totally dismissive even though they had the evidence before them. What I didn’t appreciate at the time and not until long afterwards is that by not looking at the reason I had endometriosis in the first place, I was burying the cause deeper into my body as the energy had shifted from place to another. I have found through Universal Medicne the only way to heal my body is to address the root cause of the issue and this may well be buried and take some work but I have found it has been so worth it.
Our body is the best form of ‘evidence’… as it describes the visible, honest and unbiased results of the way we are living.
Evidence is a great thing but we need to be very clear on what defines evidence; when the definition is faulty or ignorant of all the aspects that make life what it is in its entirety we will make the falseness or reductionism our base. Then evidence-based medicine will fall short of what humanity needs to truly heal.
Accepting anecdotal evidence of a person’s lived experience would mean validating the person’s truth – I can understand how that would be too empowering for the current society’s liking where everything relies on people being unwell and not content with life. Anything that would endow humanity total freedom and true power is likely to be dismissed/ridiculed/denied/attacked.
I agree Fumiyo and it would also mean that ‘science’ and ‘research’ would not holdpower of being the experts over everyone meaning they would have to work to serve humanity rather than control it.
Our bodies and the way we live are a walking petri dish with all we need to know completely observable to all who choose to look with the eyes of the inner heart and all the wisdom contained therein.
Beautiful analogy Liane and one that is so true.
Looking at life and our health at the level of energy makes so much sense and is the key to understanding and improving our health and the reality of lived experiences and recording this needs to be taken into consideration with the true value this offers humanity.
I love that people who work within conventional medicine are also looking at the big picture here, concerning our energetic wellbeing. We know that life is more than skin and bone, we know that our health manifests how we choose to live and conversely flourishes in how we choose to live depending on the choice, so why not go there, liberate ourselves from only remedy and fixing to look deep at the root of our health and wellbeing.
The fact that a doctor will accept a patient’s description of their illness as a component of their diagnosis yet does not equally accept their anecdotal testimony as to why they got well blatantly shows that the medical profession controls what is accepted as being true.
It’s interesting that often we’re quite prepared to read a review of someone’s personal experience of using a product or service for our home for example, i.e. their personal testimony- and use this info to inform our purchasing decisions, yet when it comes to science, this word of mouth anecdotal evidence is dismissed so easily. I get the need for controlled trials and scientific experiments, but there has to be also space for people’s own experiences of treatments and modalities- and allowing people the freedom to choose what works for them and their own health.
This is interesting, it got me pondering about how unsure people actually are considering trusting people’s word, it is like it does not mean anything, if someone says something that they feel. If we do not practise discerning the truth of what people share, we can very easily put everything in the basket of subjective and so negate the universality or truth of what someone is saying, because we choose not feel if it is true or not. It is like parents or teachers having two versions of an event and disciplining both students / children because they can not tell who is lying…because of this insecurity or lack clarity of reading the truth, patients / clients etc are put into the same basket, they can not be trusted, it is just a personal opinion or idea rather than feeling the truth of what they experience.
‘We are trained in medical school that the history of the patient is most important and where the gold lies…….why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover?’ A great question and one for us all to ponder whether we have been to medical school or not, for don’t we see the same kind of hypocrisy across the board in many organisations and systems today?
Even the topics and subjects we research are often determined by an agenda to achieve a certain outcome. No doubt there are areas of Science, humanities or even illness and disease that have not yet been fully studied, in avoidance of what the true conclusions may expose.
Yes, who decides what is evidence? Surely our bodies are the authority on what truly works?
So much time, energy and money is spent in the area of improving health and well-being, yet the answers are right under our noses in how we live. We would be wise to study this, and we can begin with noting what make a person feel truly vital, committed to life, full of purpose and with a joy of working with one another.
The embracing and acknowledgement of actual reports of peoples lives and their lived experiences is surely better evidence than the manipulation and doctoring of engineered scenarios to suit the cause and outcome wanted. Bring back the reality of life and health can be brought to a new and real understanding of our livingness.
The word evidence inspires a picture of a mountain that is solid and impressive. When we feel something in our body we know to be true, mountains pale into insignificance.
It is such a good question – why do we accept personal history as evidence when someone is ill and yet discount it when someone describes how they turned around their health to more vitality? It is so illogical. When the world is getting sicker, it is time we had a much greater focus on lifestyle and listened when we had examples of lifestyle changes that work. The greatest gift we are given is free choice and that if we don’t want to change we don’t have to, but we should never vilify those who choose to bring more attention to their health and are finding benefits just because it doesn’t have a double blind control study to back it up. That is not remotely intelligent.
We are all so blessed to be offered the truth Serge is presenting. Whilst known innately in us all, it is rarely connected to and much less brought out. Hence Serge speaking up is giving us all permission to re-empower ourselves and speak up too.
This is such an interesting interview, I noted how diminishing it is towards human beings and their anecdotal evidence for science and medicine to suggest that their version of evidence is the only truth and for anything else to be disrespected. This ownership of the word evidence reminds of times in history where religion has owned their version of God and if you challenged that you may have been killed, tortured or imprisoned for being a heretic or a witch. We do need to be careful because money and or power can drive these limiting and controlling approaches, not the intention to truly serve humanity.
In my personal experience, that which is experienced and felt within the body is a marker of true evidence and a foundation for deep healing to occur. Countless hours of debating and putting forth opinions of what is right and wrong from the mind brings knowledge, but not lived wisdom and evolution to return to love.
True science embracing the results of peoples lives and their livingness is surely the way to go in a world facing a real health crisis in every field and overstressed resources. The answers are right in front of us and taking note of this from personal healing results makes absolute sense to everything and will change the world health situation dramatically for us all with the responsibility this asks for.
Absolutely Tricia, with the world health crisis the last thing we need is people with vested interests influencing how we move forward, we need a shared common sense approach to live in a way that is supportive to our health and wellbeing, and anecdotal evidence is a good foundation for that.
A doctor prescribes medication based upon how we describe our symptoms yet our anecdotes of personal healing that do not conform to ‘evidence based medicine’ are not accepted. Where is the logic in that?
Indeed self reports of our own healing processes can offer a richness to the science of healing.
Great point… This is dismissing our own body of evidence … How can we heal the whole if we are not accepting a part of the whole that has made the whole difference?…
Evidence based medicine has resulted in huge improvements in medical understanding, which are not to be underestimated or ignored. However, one is illusion if one believes it has brought about healing.
Great observation about how we can offer anecdotal evidence when ill, but not when well, or healing what was ill and living more vital and healthy. There are choices, worthwhile observations and practices that offer support, another way and true healing. There is no doubt people’s lived experience has worth that is currently under estimated and ignored by corporations and some sections of the scientific community.
This form of science will accept a personal experience when it comes to the symptoms and conditions but not when it comes to the healing or solution. My experience of the Esoteric Healing modalities is that I am supported to heal myself.
Where is the common sense when many in the medical and scientific community quickly dismiss anecdotal evidence? If someone has lived in a very disregarding way and their body has suffered as a result and then they change their lifestyle and their health issues disappear, that to me is evidence; true living evidence.
It’s true Ingrid… Anecdotal evidence will surely be part of the way of the future, as the double-blind standards alone can lead us up yet another dead end path.
It is undermining of a person’s lived experience to not accept anecdotal evidence. It is strange that we do not value or accept the validity of anecdotal evidence because we know that things such as wellbeing and quality of life are individual and subjective but still very valid.
For me the evidence in my own body and life is clear – self care makes sense and really works.
There is a huge debate in philosophy about what knowledge is, if we can ever truly ‘know’ something or be sure that something is true. To me, these arguments, while in some ways help us not to blindly follow science because science says its true, also take away from our ability to know, from lived experience, our truth. If I am more vital, joyful and present in life, if I sleep better and have better relationships, if I am more productive at work and need less distractions and outside stimulation than ever before, do I really need to worry about whether my experience is true, or have someone else come along and validate my experience of life scientifically? No, I will live and I will grow and continue to do what I am doing because I know it works – Me and my living way is the evidence.
This is beautiful Rebecca and I agree that science has generally speaking got so caught up in proving beyond a doubt that something is true in an objective way that it has almost become a bit of an obsession to supposedly rule out all bias and subjectivity, but in this drive it has reduced evidence to such a narrow intellectual stream that it is actually limiting what we can learn and understand about ourselves and about life.
I agree – while in some ways selecting different variables to measure can help us see how different things impact on something, it also stops us seeing how it really is in life, how all the variables interact and impact on each other.
The truth is our minds will never be satisfied that something is true because they are unable to discern truth energetically. Only our bodies and the particles that make up our bodies can actually know or sense if something feels true as a vibrational quality or not.
I agree – our minds are cold and hard and cannot comprehend the world and the universe in truth, because the universe is more than empty and cold facts – it is wonder and beauty and vast beyond measure – it takes more than mental knowledge to comprehend it
The proof of how we live and how this is displayed in our body is all the proof and evidence one honestly lives when we recognise and understand how energy precede form.
I have often heard and used my self the phrase; if it works why mess with it? Word of mouth is normally another example of lived evidence. Both of these examples just feel right and have a built-in and lived authority that is usually enough evidence.
Steve great point, what if true science embraced actual accounts from people and their lived experiences? The results could change the way we live forever.
Picking and choosing evidence sounds an awful lot like bias and tailoring results to suit a need, as opposed to true, ‘reliable evidence’ – the whole picture.
Yes, I agree, and I feel a slight heaviness as I am reminded of how prevalent that bias and tailoring in research is.
Yes, and for whose benefit is this? Surely if it were for the true good of the general public we would be given the whole picture. As it stands we don’t get the whole picture. So who is this evidence for?
Very true Susie, a need and an investment leading to control – true evidence comes from allowing what is there to be seen.
It will change the face of medicine, science and our relationship with being responsible for our health when anecdotal evidence is valued, as well as quantitative research. We do know what supports us to be well and vital in life and currently hide behind statistics that come out of the muddy water of heavily financed and often biased evidence based research.
So simple, evidence of what has been lived is obviously evidence, why discount people experiences….there is no sense in it.
Observing our way of living health and real life experiences speak wonders and is so natural and real and something that needs to be considered if we are to evolve and see what is really going on with our health and the world and the loving choices we can make as everything is energy first.
Over the past several years I have been deepening my understanding of the level of harm and damage we impose on one another when we dismiss children’s awareness, feelings and experience from early on.
And now I have been witnessing this bullying and supremacy tactic of acting as if you are better than and count more than another carries on even in adult world. Controlling the word evidence and telling millions that their personal experience does not count is a perfect example. And what is more many of us play right into it. In fact as we know nothing would play out, or last unless both parties were contributing to it.
Time to stop this limiting and regressive pattern wherever we see it.
The real change will start to happen when we start to see living with any sort of emotion be it anxiety, stress, overwhelm etc, highlights there is something in the way we are living that is not true to our body or our being. It is simply not intelligent to override this as most tend to do.
When we want facts and proof from a science and medical point of view we are totally overlooking the valued and scientific proof of what the body is showing us. It is like if we do this then we have to admit that there is another way of being with our health and it is asking us to be responsible and accountable for what we live.
Don’t we as human beings want to be able to say what works for us? Are our thoughts and experiences not valuable in our own health and wellbeing? Its kind of crazy for anyone to say… your experiences don’t count as we have no evidence of them. Am I and my experiences not living breathing evidence?
It is interesting when we dismiss people’s experience in medicine. Is this often because it does not fit with a belief or outcome we want to hold onto?
From my observations of research, the topics are very much being controlled. The limited funding for research directs what will be studies by those with the money. This can be decided by multinationals, government agencies etc. all with their own agenda and limited perspectives. The days of freely researching from the desire to know seem to be dead. Publishing is also an area of control. The journals are ranked in their credibility and you have to play the evidence based research game to enter a journal with wide readership.
One example of allowing the control of what is considered evidence limit our awareness would be humanity still being under the prescribed belief that the Earth is flat!
Letting anyone dictate and impede the natural deepening and expansion of awareness is never a wise move.
I heard on the radio that research has shown that antidepressant drugs work and should be made available to more people. I wonder who did this research, it wasn’t the drug companies by any chance?
What Serge Benhayon continues to present is a relationship with the body- a constant experiment with how you are and what your body is communicating. It is science. It is medicine.
As some others have commented this highlights the deeper mistrust we have in our own awareness of situations. But this mistrust is educated into us, we aren’t born with it as very young children don’t doubt it and can spot an adult lying a mile off. We get taught to not listen to our bodies and to rely on outside science that doesn’t have truth and true well-being for all in consideration. This is being exposed more and more. This demand to follow only evidence based medicine is not natural to us.
Yes, it’s important to be aware of where funding for research is coming from.
I was observing the consciousness around science recently and the elitist attitude of someone who was extolling the virtues of it over and above the arts. What was really interesting to observe in this case was that I could clearly feel it was something that had been taken on rather than a truth from the body, and this is what we do when we invest in a particular way of doing things – for the recognition and control it gives us. This doesn’t support humanity but simply keeps us separate and aloof from one another.
Money buys science, research and what is called evidence in today’s medical science to the detriment of the people working in the system and the patients, in short all of us.
We have all the evidence we need from our own body. If we eat dairy and get blocked sinuses or eat gluten and feel bloated and heavy why do we need someone else to tell us that these substances are not good for us? We are capable of making our own observations and choices and have the power to do so. We don’t need to wait to be told.
This is a valid statement…”the history of the patient is most important and where the gold lies…….why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover? …” Its like the goal posts are moved to best suit the research..
What a wealth of information we throw away when we seek to reduce it to fit into our very narrow perimeters. True science is about connecting to the whole and observing the detail. It requires a level of intelligence that we cannot own or patent but can only tune into, a Universal knowing that resides within our cells that are governed by Universal laws we have yet to fully appreciate.
The evidence-based system is there to restrict and narrow down into knowledge, what we have experienced with our bodies. We need to be paying more attention to the messages and language of the body, not less.
Yes, I agree Julie – the body is always letting us know what doesn’t work and we often are masters at overriding this and not taking action on the information. When we act on the messages from the body, we then have evidence of the changes that can occur when aligning to the body in this way.
We have given our power away rather that trusting, accepting what is right in front of us.
Our personal experience is evidence, if we can see and feel a difference in our own health when we choose to make loving choices and have sessions that have supported, then that should be considered evidence based. My life has changed and healed so much through the support of Universal Medicine.
When we look at the reports that provide evidence, it is evident (pun intended) that there are certain trials that are made to give certain outcomes. Evidence or Agenda?
For the most part I am going with ‘agenda’ in answer to your question, Michael. It is important to be honest with ourselves here as an opportunity to approach things differently and actually be curious, without attachment to a desired outcome of any exploration or questioning.
True evidence is our own experience with our changes and effects and this needs to be recognised in a world with so much illness disease and suffering in every manner. A beautiful sharing on what is really going on to be recognised and so the world with Universal Medicine and our way of living can start to heal itself.
We accept that there is corruption by certain groups, like lobby or interest groups who have a lot of sway over big financial/political decisions. Yet we seem to turn a blind eye to corruption in evidence-based medicine. It seems to be perceived as having integrity and the ‘stamp of proof’. Yet in my experience as a health professional, evidence-based medicine changes with the wind. For almost everything ‘proven’, there is research that can disprove it. Surely this should ring alarm bells and get us to rely more on what we feel is true.
When we try to control something we limit it to such a degree, and the access to what is there.
An open mind requires us to let go of all investments and agendas in order to observe and admit the truth of any given situation. So often we carry out experiments with a vested interest in mind, to prove or disprove a theory and therefore this intention has no choice but to influence the end results. Real science begins with letting go of this ownership so that we can truly observe what is taking place before us and respond to what we see, as opposed to attempting to deny or manipulate the results to suit our needs.
Evidence in my opinion is far more than what the current scientific world wants it to be defined as. Narrow definitions as such, can end up handicapping us, resulting in the loss of much that is valuable and supportive.
“Esoteric Medicine understands life, illness and disease at the level of energy.” – After all everything is energy and every thing that happens is a result of energy. So why not stop a moment to understand the energy first …before trying to tackle all the problems without addressing the energy first and foremost!
I agree, why not stop to understand energy first before attacking. Everything is energy and everything that happens is a result of it.
There are no limits, as you suggest Eunice, evidence to any single person is the true evidence they know from their bodies. We must not cap or control it, doing so will bring a reduction to fit it onto a box and contain it, then it brings a different result. When we change the rules, we affect the whole outcome.
There are, of course, so many old paradigms that have become entrenched in research, in science, and in medicine. The cutting-edge physicists are the most honest when they say that they really just don’t know 99% of what is happening in the universe, and cobbled together theories that seem to fit until they are disproved. Our bodies are temples of wisdom, and our expression can redefine what it is, and what it means, to heal.
It is interesting that something can be the truth until disproved? But requires evidence to prove it true to start with. Is this like looking at the world through binoculars backwards?
As I have come to understand – our bodies are our greatest communicators. They don’t lie and they reflect where we are at. It is a gift we have access too – and from developing and deepening my relationship with my body, it has supported me to trust it and know innately what is going on for me. Isn’t that the best marker of where we are at?
We are weighed at birth, and in death, our parts placed on a scale. We are weighed on everything in life. We are meant to have a balanced life, work-home ratio, diet and the list goes on that all need evidence to prove these things exist. These manifest in the size of everything we possess as the evidence! We have made evidence the only key to a reality that if it doesn’t fit in the box and we can contain it, it can’t exist. So what does that do for the universe with all that space?
Brilliant interview here that highlights that there is nothing wrong with evidence based medicine as long as we understand the real meaning of the word evidence and make research truly about improving the health of all of humanity not just owning or making money from it.
‘Evidence’ is such a limiting word in its current use. Observing living is truer, and the outcome always changes with our evolution.
‘…why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover?’ perhaps we should also be focusing on our own accounts of why we got ill because we allow the medical profession to do this for us however we all know deep down that our way of life is the cause of all our ills.
If we do not have a clear understanding of how something works and there is no ‘evidence’ of harm or ill side effects and yet there are clear benefits is this evidence enough for its use? It is very clear that we need guidelines and standards to keep people from harmful interventions, however our science to date may not encompass a level of energetic understanding of life’s mechanisms to explain how they work.
The more I listen and honour my body the more it communicates with me. Embracing what it is sharing and know that the body and being is a complete science within its own right then all that is being communicated is in fact a science because it is being felt and experienced by myself and anyone that observes that.
There are numerous examples in conventional medicine of treatments being used without there being sufficient evidence that they work or without the mechanism of how they work being fully understood. The drug Gabapentin is one example – it is commonly used to provide relief for people with nerve pain but when you read research papers on it nobody knows how it works! So it is interesting how different rules apply if a reputable professional complementary health organisation like Universal Medicine shows that they can support people with certain conditions, even if there is currently limited evidence available. It shows how closed ranks medicine has become and how closed off to considering anything outside of the conventional medicine model.
Could the key to improving our understanding and therefore the quality of our health care be in opening up to the potential and the possibilities and having a truly open mind free to observe, explore and consider how things really work?
Anything less than this will keep us trapped in the same patterns, same beliefs and same solutions that has got us into the lack of wellbeing which is debilitating humanity and crippling our health system.
It feels as though we are in a transitional period where we are waking up to the fact that there is more, and the old ways although good, don’t give us the whole picture. We have been lied to and information withheld, rubbished or destroyed by conventional ways of thinking which will have to be replaced or added to by our living evidence.
There is so much mistrust in our own experience of life – unless it happens within the confines of a controlled lab, did it really happen?
Yes I agree this general mistrust of anecdotal evidence and mistrust in personal experience perhaps is a symptom of a deeper problem with humanity that we have lost our connection to our intuitive awareness of what is true or not.
I agree – and we have lost trust that people will truly be honest. When we have so many people willing to bring themselves to the point of death because they ‘enjoy their alcohol, drugs or cigarettes’ we have to re-define what we mean by honesty, as not including anything that is only true or honest in a part but not in a whole – on one level, it is true you enjoy that drug high, because there is a moment of seeming freedom from the tensions and reality of life, but the whole shows us the toll it takes on the body and on the person’s general wellbeing, the toll it takes on society and those who produce and deal the drug. At this level, that seeming honesty does not hold true.
How else are we going to move forward if we do not take responsibility for our health and start taking anecdotal evidence seriously. Humanity puts more effort into sending rockets to the moon than educating people about our health and well-being. To say we have slightly wonky priorities is an under statement. The funny thing is, even when we have ‘conquered’ space, we will still be facing the same lifestyle issues and lack of sensible scientific response to our ills. Perhaps we need a big readjustment in our universal sense of perspective.
Bingo Rowena… Yes, so much research, time, effort and money is placed to build a habitual place on an inhospitable planet, but we transport to it the human who has yet to master life here on earth.
Great point Doug. Controlling evidence when looking for truth, is as ridiculous as asking a question and then censuring the answer.
I watched a documentary about major US organisations that were asked about the relationship of conflicting studies of diet and their relationship to a disease that these foundations were championing research. None of them would discuss diet and effects it had on the cure for what they were supporting. In the end, it was discovered that all of these organisations were funded and supported by companies that are manufactures for these foods. Is this the same as the tobacco company’s that had doctors that worked for them, saying smoking was harmless? How long has fake news been around, before it had a name?
Yes, a small trial is estimated to cost £300,000!
The requirements for evidence are formal, strict and quite rigid. One consequence is that it is possible to provide evidence that suits those who fulfil these requirements with many examples from the pharmaceutical industries regularly being cited in the scientific literature as examples of strict adherence to the guidelines but results that do not reflect reality.
All of the evidence points towards there being a lot more to life than just what we see. But as long as we continue on with a linear superficial mindset we will never admit that life is about energy first. Thank you Serge Benhayon, and Eunice for this brilliant sharing.
Serge’s final comment is a perfect tie up of the interview – He talks about the fact that the current Gold standard is not wrong, but if we make it the only evidence then we lose out on the anecdotal evidence which is of equal importance. I see this as “every voice matters” – in other words, each person’s voice is essentially in some way evidence that we need to be open to considering. We cannot just base things on numbers and test results but we must bring in the human and the being, for without them, it is an emptiness we are dealing with which brings no true and lasting success!
Observation is key, and in this it is equally important to take each situation and work with the person on how they feel…For what do we deem as success when a person undergoes an operation and can as a result move their limb in full range of motion, but they have depression and are feeling suicidal? Do we celebrate the limb and say the job is complete as blood tests don’t show any evidence of depression? Or do we look at the anecdotal evidence of the person feeling depressed and work with them to support them? Evidence Based Medicine might perhaps be shooting themselves in the foot when they try to control all the outcomes?
Brilliant interview – thank you Eunice and Serge – In particular what stood out for me was when Serge talked about the fact that evidence cannot be owned by money. No different to a murder trial where you do not need 30 witnesses to the act, once you have a certain amount of evidence the person gets convicted! This shows us how misled we can get in medicine and looking for evidence based medicine and double blind trials to prove an outcome rather than giving credence to a person’s anecdotal evidence of how much their life has changed!
True observation requires no control it is just a simple process of witnessing the results and outcomes of a range of choices and behaviour. I really appreciate the tools of observation that Universal Medicine has taught me. They have empowered me to observe the effects of my life style choices, observe the effects of the Universal Healing Modalities and observe the effects of orthodox medicine, all of which affect my body. And hence the art in the science of observation and good health lies in knowing how my body responds to all three, plus when and how to engage them in order to keep my health and well being on track.
What is health? In my books this is intimately to do with our experience and relationship with life. And so it is the person living that life who can truly give evidences whether it is achieved or not.
We pour so much funding, resources and manpower into medical research but what if fundamentally our methods and restrictions are capping what we are capable of understanding?
To me there is no more profound evidence than that of a lived way.
Opening up to us all what we really know that it is our living experience that how we live effects our health and the evidence from our body speaking is everything and needs to be taken seriously. Our life style is of utmost importance and Universal Medicine is the pioneer leading the way in inspiring us to take more care of ourselves and to take responsibility for our own health and well being lovingly.
When you go to the doctors they ask a series of questions and we respond to them from what our body is telling us. This is evidence that builds up a case so a conclusion can be determined as to what is the issue. The body is the evidence so if it is responding and is positive then this is also evidence.
Is the human race at this point in our existence not totally tired of being lied to or evidence not being used or withheld just so a small percentage of people hold all the wealth and power? The living evidence of ourselves is living proof that things are working or not working as the case may be.
This is such an important point. “The living evidence of ourselves is living proof that things are working or not”. We all inherently know this, so a valid question to also ask is how come we are not tired of letting ourselves be lied to and how come we are choosing to live a lie?
At times I am surprised at the ridiculousness of the lie such as alcohol and chocolate being actually good for you, supposedly proven by some bogus research (similar to how for years people were told cigarettes are good for you) and I wonder how come this is allowed. Then I realise that so many us ‘want’ such convenient information in order to avoid the actual evidence of the harm from within our own bodies.
Very true Elizabeth which is amazing as we can be informed by our own evidence to make choices to improve our health and quality of life. It is odd that the medical profession seems to want us to only make choices on its consideration of something being proven despite the fact that so many people may already be experiencing benefits of other choices and options available to them.
As others have shared the lived evidence that we all have based on our experience is what is critical for society to hear, otherwise just like everyone else I didn’t know there was another way to live or to look after myself. My living testimonial of my life is the evidence case for everyone. Time to get writing and sharing.
If we all started to place more focus onto our bodies and started asking more questions about why certain things are the way they are and were ready for the answers, we would at least beginning to be more open to seeing/feeling things differently.
Is it not time, that we stop being led up the garden path and fed gargantuan lies which we willingly swallow and start listening to what we know and feel to be true. I knew Serge was on the level from the first time I met him and what he presents makes so much sense.
Have we given away our power to the medical professionals with the belief they know what is good for us? Advances in all medical areas have greatly improved the way we now live. But, have we been blinded and lost touch with our most important source of information, our body?
There are hundreds of people like me who are physical evidence of how health can be improved through simple lifestyle changes, I am a walking ‘miracle’ that has really happened – I am lighter, slimmer, fitter, healthier, more vital than I was thirteen years ago. This kind of ‘Before and After’ evidence cannot be denied and needs to be displayed widely in order to inspire others and also to knock on the head the need for statistical evidence – my ‘vital statistics’ are the evidence – from a Size 22 to a Size 10.
What a beautiful subject, showing us more truth on what health is and what we need. Not based on our current limited views, but a potential existential view that serves us in a deeper way which then results to greater health.
The more we speak up, then the greater value the currency of “lived evidence” will have. This is how we empower humanity to have a voice.
Our bodies are truly intelligent and it is us giving control to our minds that stops us listening to its truth. We all have countless examples of feeling what is true and overriding it and then regretting how we feel in our bodies afterwards, whether it be drinking alcohol, overeating, over indulging in sports or speaking angrily to another person – our bodies feel everything and eventually shout back at us to say ‘Stop!’
Wow. This interview totally exposed the confined meaning of ‘evidence’ as used by medicine. Sadly because of this we are all potentially missing out on learning more about a better way to look after ourselves and the prevention of illness and disease.
Abby that’s it, medicine and evidence are two things that need to be looked at on a much bigger level – one that considers how people truly feel about their evidence.
Orthodox medicine has its roots firmly embedded in anecdotal evidence, it really is how it began by people working out what worked and what didn’t work on people who could direct feedback. It is only since we have begun the bizarre practice of trying out our ideas on animals, who are unable to give us verbal feedback, that we have moved away from experimenting on each other. So I wonder, what is it that we don’t want to hear?
When we point to various parts of our body that hurt, could it be our finger is broken? The body never lies, we just sometimes read the message wrong.
Our body is the best doctor we could ever visit. I mean, just think about it, who is gonna know more about what is going on – the doctor who has spent three minutes with us and asked as few questions…or the body that is living and breathing every moment of what is going on. It’s a no-brainer. So, let’s listen start truly listening to our bodies.
Very true that what we are confronted with in life is what we ourselves have created coming back to us. How exposing in that case is it that we have a system in place that is dismissing our own account of our own health and healing as an invalid evidence? It is time that we started to reclaim our innate awareness and truth, starting with the way we treat and honour ourselves in our everyday lives.
When we visit our GP he or she bases their diagnosis on what we say and a possible physical examination but much of their work is based on knowledge not on energetic awareness.
All done under the immense pressure of the ticking clock, the vast queue outside their clinic, the targets and quotas that are imposed upon them, the long work hours and the ever-uncertainly about the future of their job. No wonder it’s all about quick fixes rather than a truly universal investigation of the body and our choices.
This is true because there have been times when telling the GP that I am doing something that is improving my health and my GP dismisses it as being insignificant because it does not fit in with what she/he has learnt or not of their own experience. What I have learnt myself is that all the small steps are significant to improving health and are in the right direction – so I continue to listen to myself.
True science and true medicine is about enabling people to live really healthy lives. Therefore anecdotal evidence plays a vital role in guiding our education, as our bodies clearly show us what is healthy and what is not and sadly at present, many of our life style choices are showing us the latter. Serge Benhayon has for me, and thousands of other people too, restored the marker of true vitality and health, so that I can orientate my lifestyle choices onto firmly healthy territory guided by the anecdotal evidence that my body delivers to me everyday.
Significant point Rowena. Instead of dismissing anecdotal evidence and making people feel their personal awareness re insights does not count, we could be supporting people to deepen their commitment to awareness and ability to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.
The courtroom and GP examples Serge gives in this interview demonstrate how ridiculous the ‘evidence based’ witch hunt has become. It amazed me that I hadn’t thought of this myself – this shows how bullying the ‘evidence based’ argument is.
This absurdly simple comparison that Serge brilliantly draws, exposing the total inconsistency in how we accept evidence in one part of life (a legal courtroom) and yet we totally disregard it in the world of medicine, illustrates the grip that external forces have on the health system of society. It is run by $$$ not by a desire to seek truth (which is, to the best of its ability and in its imperfect way, the purpose of a law court)
When you speak with people involved with research, you immediately hear the pressures and impositions placed on the research that is conducted. Gone are the days of researching just to find out. If the research doesn’t receive a grant (so called free money) it just doesn’t happen. So, you need someone with a vested interest (e.g. A pharmaceutical company or a government department) to back the research.
Great point Fiona – research these days may start with the ‘innocence’ of the true scientist that actually wants to know what happens, but this is very quickly controlled by the rigid constructs of grants and vested interests as the true impulse is buried and lost, in the name of the so called greater authority.
Thanks to the internet and presentations like this, I can now share my anecdotal evidence far and wide. I don’t have to rely on the scientific world to believe it or not, I can make my own scientific findings very public.
This feels that we have allowed everything to be required to go through testing and to be proven rather than listen to the experiences of others because we have first stopped listening to ourselves. Once you reconnect to all that your body is telling you it brings true perspective to the living evidence that we all are of the result of the choices and journeys we have chosen.
There has been a big initiative by the health system that is buckling under the weight of the escalating illness and disease to get people more aware and interested in taking care of themselves as well. Denigrating people’s personal accounts of their own health and dismissing anecdotal evidence in contrast dishes out the exact opposite.
Yes Golnaz – it shows how commercialised illness and disease has become. Drug companies don’t want to cure disease, they want to profit from it.
Golnaz that’s a really valid and important point, that information is known that the way we take care of ourselves is key. I say time to embrace that, ignoring peoples lived experience takes away the very thing we want people to do – take responsibility for their healthcare.
This interview begins the much needed open conversation on what is valid evidence – what is lived and experienced or what is carried out in the lab. Both are valid, neither is exclusive of the other.
Our bodies have a wonderful way of restoring the harmonious balance innate within. If we get a hangover, it doesn’t last forever, because the body heals itself by eliminating the toxins from our system. But do we take advantage of this restoration process and continue to ingest the toxins, or do we learn from it and work with this innate harmoniousness? It’s a choice – but having experienced both, my preference is the latter, big time.
One of the key teachings of Universal Medicine for me has been to understand that all illness and disease is the result of choices we have made either in this lifetime or in a previous one.
How often do we ignore evidence because of how simple the truth can be? How many times have we shaken, tapped, switched on/off and rapped some appliance that has stopped working? Only to find out it was unplugged!
ha ha love the analogy and so true. Why do we want to make things so complicated? Its crazy!
Wise words Steve. How humbling it is to realise that the main source of our woes is and has always been our choice to be ‘unplugged’ from the supply of true power.
What I have found the basis of my choices to now be is one that honours my body, this wasn’t the case before being introduced to Serge Benhayon and the Universal Modalities. The level of care, attention to detail, honouring of the body and appreciating what it is there to offer us I have been blown away how this is the base line of what Universal Medicine teaches on. Having been around Serge and observing him for over 14 years he has been absolutely consistent and dedicated to this and I have been deeply inspired because of this.
Many of us are experimenting with our own body everyday, because for example if we eat something and it gives us indigestion eventually we avoid eating it again, when we go to bed early we start to feel more energised. So we can learn through our own experiences that there is self evidence that supports us to improve our own health.
We all need medical support, but we also intrinsically need a much deeper understanding of why we get ill in the first place and where the root causes lie. Universal Medicine has empowered me to develop a whole new and very beneficial relationship with my body, my health and with illness and orthodox medicine. Now I have a truly holistic understanding of the depth of my responsibility for my body, my health, what orthodox medicine can offer me, what I can offer it and what the purpose of illness is. I don’t need any other evidence than the immense shift in the quality of my health to know exactly what has, and continues to, do me the greatest good and at present nothing has topped the power and effectiveness of the Universal Healing Modalities as presented by Serge Benhayon.
Now you are talking a true holistic approach. With my many years of interest in health and pursuing various teachings and modalities, nothing has gone even close to the depth of understanding and honouring of who we are in essence and the significance of illness and disease.
My body is certainly the best guide and barometer for what supports me in my daily life and also in my healing. Medical advice is important and I ask for it when needed, but also to bring in what my body shows me is a vital part to my health and wellbeing because there is a wealth of guidance that comes from my body.
I agree Ruth, there is a way of living that honours the truth and communication of our body in true partnership with conventional medicine
The evidence comes from the body, science will interpret it as it will, and change over time, but it will come back to the wisdom from the body.
Yes, it brings a deeper meaning to the statement of having ..’a body of evidence’… Its not only the facts and figures on paper from laboratory experiments, it is simply that our physical body does not hide evidence… it responds loud and clearly.
So true Johanne. Love the play on words that reveal the absolute truth. We can interpret the evidence all we like, but our bodies will always remain resolute to the truth.
As this system of controlling evidence can only exist because we have allowed it and even created it to be, so it offers us a deeper understanding of why? We have effectively created a system which de-values us and our experience or places something else as more important – does this not reflect how we have come to live? If we change our own way of living and live with self-worth and a connection to all that we are from within then this system could no longer reduce the lived experience to something less than is truly is.
Have we created a system designed to make us doubt the evidence of our own feelings and innate senses? It seems so to me. How devastating. Time for us to turn the tide and live from a foundation of self-love instead – and see what this way of being has to offer.
Very good point Michael if we value ourselves the surrounding system has to then change. We are ultimately responsible!
A true concern about the health of people would mean leaving no stone unturned in deepening our awareness about how to live a truly healthy and vital life, as well as understanding illness and disease. And every opportunity offered to do this would be welcomed.
My body definitely has a very high level of intelligence and clearly sends me evidence about the quality of my lifestyle choices all the time. We don’t need to do randomised double blind tests to know what is good or bad for us, we just need to pay attention to the very first message our body sends us.
The body never questions, filters or dumbs down what it tells us. We can choose to do that ourselves. The body only knows Oi, I have something to tell you!
In not choosing to listen to our bodies first and foremost we are giving ourselves permission to not take responsibility for our choices that then affect it. The whole show we have created keeps this momentum going as we continue to live disconnected from our bodies and from the innate wisdom we naturally hold.
The more I give myself space to stop and feel the more I can hear what my body is communicating. In push and drive, I override these signals all the time but in creating space I create more self-appreciation and can observe objectively without judgment offering myself opportunities to make changes or simply appreciate the confirmation I may be feeling.
And I am one such person, one of the many, that is living far far better now than I was before in many different aspects of my life from my health physically, mentally, emotionally and in my relationships and life as the whole. My whole wellbeing has deeply benefit from the Universal Medicine modalities and since knowing Universal Medicine I have not looked back (apart from looking at the areas of my life that needed healing!) it is onwards and upwards ✨
When we return to our naturally clairsentient ways, then evidence will come from our own bodies and from our own knowing. This evidence will complement the currently accepted forms of evidence, until we return to living from our energetic awareness and then the truth of energy will be the primary evidence that everyone naturally uses.
As others have shared to make everything ‘proven science’ means we end up with a very limited way of living and looking after ourselves, one that in fact misses the very root of what is going wrong with our health in the first place. When we are open to the whole picture we end up in the strongest position of all – with truth.
The thing is with this Gill depending on who is presenting the evidence everyone just accepts it as gospel. How many times has the science community confirmed something only to dispute it in the future?
The ‘creeping-in dark new age’ says it all, what a strong and utterly descriptive way to name the ‘closed shop’ reductionism present in scientific research today.
‘Evidence’ in evidence-based medicine means evidence as evaluated in the hierarchical model developed by epidemiology – it is basically epidemiology re-branded and very successfully so.
It seems that Science is now a business, and to work within it, and prove things in a scientific arena, you need to be a millionaire, I can only liken this to the Church and its long reign and control over what was allowed as true and what was not. I love this video because it confirms that nobody can prove us wrong when it comes to how our lives have improved and we must continue to document this living evidence, for one day, it will speak volumes.
What Eunice and Serge Benhayon bring up is the possibility that there is more to us than what we see and so, we can not rely on evidence that is only based on academic or commercial interest.. Would it not make sense to include the experience of every body when something works? Should that not be at least equally important – as it is all about “living” anyway. I know for myself that this makes a lot of sense and I feel truly blessed by allowing experience of people, if it only means one or two, to be evidence.
Brilliant interviews Eunice. My life has changed greatly as has my health and well-being improved extensively since developing a loving relationship with my body. I now know and am in awe of the absoluteness of truth that is reflected through the body, and how this is without question all the evidence I need to know if the choices I am making are truly supporting me. To re-introduce and bring back the value of being guided by the intelligence of our bodies, is not only empowering but is also what will support our true advancement as a humanity.
Yes, it is quite fascinating that an entity much smarter than us is always available for everyone – our body.
Eunice it is great to embrace the fact that evidence can and should be what each and every one of us truly feel, the changes in our lives as the result of something is evidence. To not call it that is indeed limiting or delaying the quality of life we all will lead.
There is so much arrogance in the world of science in the way that nothing is true until they have proven it to be true. Why do we need quantifying facts to prove what we can already feel and already know? It’s great to have confirmation in the form of facts and statistics, but we need to respect the fact that there is so much that exists that is unexplained well before science comes along to prove it.
In effect we need to learn to accept the uncontrollable, people’s individual experiences, as being the most valuable source of scientific evidence there is. When a group of people from very diverse demographic backgrounds begin reporting experiences that have a great deal in common, then surely this is a huge marker of success to sit up and take notice of. When a health approach or modality works, (and Universal Medicine clearly does) the results are plain to see. To argue down or ignore this evidence is to deny our innate right to health.
Someone can be convicted on the weight of the evidence presented. Can we lose the cause of an illness by the weight of procedures that in the end resulted in being cured? Could it be possible, that sometimes the truth gets lost on the journey to the solution?
The ‘dominating’ type way of thinking in Science and Medicine that says “we will cast you out if you don’t abide by our model” is obviously not working on a whole – for how can we account for brilliant surgeons and medical professionals that take their own lives, if this institution is impervious and the 100% correct model?
Life and our every choice has its own evidence. Yet what is clear is how we tend to twist it to suit our point of view. Is it any wonder that so many pieces of ‘research’ come out seeming crooked? The only undeniable barometer I have found is the long term way we feel in our body. Looking at Serge Benhayon, and the joy, vitality and wisdom he lives, evidently something works amazingly.
This is very eye opening in how currently a person’s lived experience is not accepted as evidence. As well as eye opening it is absolutely ironic as how on earth could we dismiss someones lived experience that is the greatest form of evidence far beyond any trials or double blinded studies. I for one absolutely do not want humanity to be in the dark ages as I am sure many many thousands if not billons of people would say the same. Is the tide starting to turn with this and lived experience will start to be accepted as evidence more and more .. trustfully yes. We have a lot to learn here.
A great question to ask ourselves, Elizabeth – where have we dismissed our bodies signalling and wisdom for the sake of an expert’s take on what is going on? Gosh, if I applied this question in all areas of my life, there would be some very interesting moments of realisation about how much I have given my power and responsibility away.
I agree – having the courage to admit where we have given and still give our power away to evidenced based medicine, is a great step towards taking responsibility.
A brilliant interview exposing the fact that money controls our evidence based research and that we dismiss anecdotal evidence because it cannot be controlled, categorised or conveniently quantified… thank you Serge and Eunice for sharing this insight.
My body is my evidence and I trust my connection to my body far more than the sponsored science that we are bombarded with.
This is indeed something we should sit up and take notice of – that we are gradually creeping and falling into a new modern ‘dark ages’ where information, evidence and practice of medicine is heavily censored and controlled by a few who desire absolute power over it.
Imagine, how far down the wrong track we’ve gone, to dismiss the evidence of everyday people, their anecdotes, and lived experience of bringing health back their bodies, is to dismiss the very people themselves. This is a damning and criminal as millions of people suffer and die, because of a refusal to accept anything but scientific evidence.
The title of this blog is insightful. It suggests if medical authorities were truly concerned about health they would be open and commit to explore all routes to it, not rigidly stick to one. Another way to look at this is greed. Money rules, not a commitment to solving catastrophic health crisis we’re in. In fact, in arrogance, greed and defiance, ill-health has become a money making machine, underpinned by this chilling reality: why pursue routes to true health, when there are big bucks to be made in keeping people increasingly sick and dependent.
Instead of dismissing anecdotal evidence we would be wise to keep expanding our research methods so that we can more easily allow for such invaluable sources of information to be gathered and for humanity to reap the benefit.
I agree we need evidence based science of course this is not in question, however we also need to expand our definition of the term evidence and embrace the original innocence and wide eyed open observation that was the original method of scientific discovery.
I love the description of the ‘wide eyed open observation’. For period at school we were encouraged to learn through exploring, experimenting, and observing, rather than simply studying the standard text books. Science became alive at that point. We are all scientists of life and have enormous potential to observe, share our insights and support one another in deepening our awareness and understanding. A limitation on what is evidence is a limitation on science itself.
A great description you give here Golnaz of true science and scientific discovery.
The monetisation of science and knowledge is omnipresent in so much of our society. It is an evil that caps true wisdom. I adore what Serge Benhayon exposes in this interview about the fact that the science community does not accept personal testimonials as evidence, because they can’t control them, they can’t own them, they can’t monetise them. Deeply true. But interesting to look at our responsibility in this, for that is accepting the findings of research (without investigating the source, funding, intention or parameters of that research) and yet we rubbish the evidence of the lived experience of another.
So true Otto. I too deeply appreciate what Serge Benhayon exposes here, and it does call into question our readiness to accept what are very often biaised research findings that prop up certain beliefs or habits, that because of our vested interests, we don’t want disturbed.
Absolutely ottobathurst, something as amazing as evidence and true observation which could really support and unite humanity to overcome its problems and ailments, is being narrowed down and owned to only serve the interests of a minority to wield power, control and to divide us. And because we as a collective race of beings do not actually want to see the real evidence or stark reality of how we are currently living, we play along with this game and allow it to go on.
Well, that is an interesting point. What you are saying, I think, is that we don’t want to hear the stories of those that have turned their lives around, because that calls us to, by default, look at ourselves and the way we might be living. Is it possible that we don’t want such solutions (especially ones that are, in essence based around the very simple choice to start loving ourselves) because that means we have to take responsibility for the state that we are in. As long as we can only get ‘better’ via complicated, advanced and expensive science/medicine, then we are safe in the irresponsibility of our choices by being able to pretend that we are powerless.
It stands out that to have a full and true relationship with medicine, it comes down to how we are willing to be open to look not only at the doctors or medical system but to the quality and depth of care that we take with ourselves.
‘why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover?’ Yes it doesn’t make sense if our history is taken seriously and into account but if health improvements are shared this isn’t taking into account and be evidence for the healing that has taken place. It seems very one sided and out of balance.
We are shooting our selves in the foot when we attempt to manipulate evidence in favour of our economical investments in health. So far the world has not developed a pill or potion that heals lack of self worth or disconnection from our delicate bodies, so it is in our interests to ensure that we have resolutions for these ills too. This type of healing has to be delivered via another modality and in my experience the Universal Healing Modalities are key players in this field, offering modalities that consistently enable people to heal these issues with resounding results.
Shouldn’t this form of evidence be included in all research? How can we exclude the feelings and experience of the people involved and doesn’t it make the research and methods behind it of more importance than people if we do?
Great to now openly challenge entrenched beliefs about ‘evidence based medicine’ as the only form of medicine that is valid. Being overly respectful of science-based statements dis-empowers, blocks innovation and openness to alternative approaches to medicine. Let’s look at all evidence not just evidence-based ones. Established scientific norms paraded as fact, can be openly challenged in the face of truth.
An important observation Jane ‘any medical or clinical consultation is a partnership –– one of equality – not one where the expert tells the ‘patient’ what they need’ And this requires a change on both sides: patients empowered to consider themselves equal to medical practitioners and work with them and doctors who relate to patients as partners, open to listen and learn from them..
A great question from Serge Benhayon – “Does money buy truth?” and from where I sit, it sure seems that in many cases it does. Yes, we need to have the “Gold Standard” when it comes to testing medicines that people will be taking, but why isn’t the amazing anecdotal evidence of many people turning their health and well-being around considered to a standard of equal value? Meanwhile humanity misses out on the truth.
When we look at statistical evidence we are looking at numbers that fit the question, not a representation of lived experience.
Just because something doesnt fit our ‘model’ doesnt mean it never happened… and to accept it did happen means we have to then look at our ‘model’ – and perhaps realise that the ‘model’ is not true and we have been fooled into investing in something that is not only not true but irresponsible.
Medicine can be so contradictory… on the one hand accepting evidence from our bodies when one is being diagnosed but not accepting the same evidence from our bodies when we recover.
Is this because we only want a relationship with responsibility when it is convenient?!
I have to say that my experience is that GP’s in particular do accept how I feel as evidence of my level of wellbeing either pre or post treatment. They may do tests to confirm what I am saying, but in my view such confirmation is fine. If they were to start to dismiss my choices and feelings and dictate to me – then that is another matter entirely.
” if you say you have benefited from a healing session and that is your truth, we cannot dismiss that, because, so long as that sustains itself ”
The key part to remember with true healing is that it does sustain itself and therefore the evidence is on going. Due to the truth of real true healing sessions which universal medicine modalities provide. I am living evidence of this.
I notice that often research is quoted as offering some dubious results such as chocolate or alcohol in whatever amount being actually good for your health, which to me shows that such results can quite easily be tampered with. When such poorly conducted research is allowed, I am astonished that any member of scientific community would ignore such a lack of integrity and misinformation whilst refuting the validity of anecdotal evidence.
Is this scientific based evidence or anecdotal evidence? How many times have I heard this in my life time and yet we are all using both methods and both are valid. By the time scientific evidence is gathered the whole situation has already changed, so what is the truth in all of this?
It is an important point that doctors accept and solicit anecdotal evidence in individual patient encounters and generally reject it when it is published. The difference may be that in a one-on-one treatment, the only person affected is the patient while in a publication it could be many patients. However, the point holds that doctors accept anecdotal evidence all day long.
On some level there is an awareness that our current method of relying on ‘scientific proof’ to be considered evidence is not always necessary as we have gone outside of this but it is with control as to be open to this on the whole would mean acknowledging all that comes with it, including true responsibility.
When the extent of how badly off we are health wise and the actual state of our health systems is actually publicised truly and the more and more nurses and health professionals that leave the profession totally demoralised, maybe then we will take anecdotal evidence as a valuable asset to assist us out of the mess we are in.
Evidence-based medicine has become a construct designed to control medicine as defined by health establishment, drug companies and government. Medicine and pharmaceuticals is a multi-billion pound industry protected by a solid concrete wall. It is now a closed system, fiercely guards its interests and is unwilling to consider the wealth of evidence from the people living healthy and well lives, often drug free.
Triage is a form of limiting and controlling treatment that is necessary during emergencies, but has our overloaded system sufficient cause to use it as a normal procedure?
It’s a true point Serge makes, that when we go to the doctors and say we’ve experienced x, y and z in the body it is valid enough to then prescribe drugs from, yet when a group of people can claim they’ve experienced a, b and c changes and in their bodies and improvements in their health and well-being it is not accepted in the same way. We need a level and honest playing field whose purpose is to produce research and products that support us all rather than putting the bottom line before people’s well-being.
The simplicity of what Serge Benhayon is presenting is actually super enormous at the same time. What if it was approved and agreed that someone’s experience is a form of evidence. That a significant shift in someones health and wellbeing has come from making different choices and then the outcome has been transformational. Bring on the those days is all I can say.
It seems to me that evidence will be accepted if it aligns and agrees with the ‘received wisdom’ of the day (I use that term advisedly for it it not wisdom but regurgitation); if it is convenient and fits with the accepted norm. Anything that doesn’t will be viewed with suspicion, disbelief, ridicule etc until it can be scientifically proven. Even then some will never accept the truth.
It is certainly much easier to publish something non-controversial as there is little risk for the publisher or the author.
I love the expansion of the definition of intelligence from what we think with our mind, to the responses of our body to the actions imposed by the mind. The physical/physiological consequences of our actions are true intelligence, not how much we can recall, invent etc.
I think it’s really important not to dismiss or dis-honour our own experiences of health and what we’ve found has and hasn’t supported us. It doesn’t have to be the same for everyone, some people may find a certain food supportive and others not but that doesn’t negate what it is for each person; tuning in with our whole body more gives us a great marker for what is and isn’t working well.
We have all the evidence we need right under our noses. Our bodies show us everything we need to know. If we heal something through dedication and love for ourselves then we know this to be the truth. This is our own true evidence. No need for confirmation from science, medicine or anywhere else.
I for one can definitely say that I have benefitted greatly from healing sessions and the modalities of Universal Medicine and that is my truth and I have also benefitted greatly from western medicine also in fact I would not be here without it so the amalgamation of the two can only result in a far better understanding of so much more than we know now. It is great to see Eunice asking the questions that need to be addressed.
Evidence is such a legal sounding word that relies on weight to be real, it needs some number to tip the scales. Whereas love, truth and feeling; is or it is not.
Very true Steve and this is what we have made the word to be in our use of it and association with research and systems of validating findings. We have made it about quantity rather than quality.
I always thought the point of science was that one was always open to new ideas. It would seem in the case of evidence-based medicine it is often a case of ‘follow the money’.
Interesting how the consciousness of science has us believing it has got it all sewn up, so absolute it seems to be, However, this absoluteness on closer inspection is an arrogance born of being in control and of having supremacy over the people it purports to support and a rigidity over what it is prepared and not prepared to accept (it rather reminds me of the consciousness of the Catholic church).
Everyday we run experiments on our selves via the lifestyle choices we make. What a wealth of research and evidence we reject when we fail to take into account anecdotal evidence, a mine of information ready and waiting to inform us about so many things.
The body never gives up sending us this information. In fact, it gets louder with that cough, limp or whatever you persist in ignoring.
A scientific approach to life is one that forever explores the principles and mechanisms behind everything in life with an openness for the unknown.
Because there is always more we can learn and understand the only reasonable approach to life is an ‘open mind’, meaning to not reduce oneself to what is considered to be known and make it the all there is but rather from, with and beyond that knowing be forever explorative of life in its boundless multidimensionality.
A brilliant, insightful and super pertinent set of opening questions – thank you Eunice and Serge for going there.
I wonder why our experience is accepted when we are describing symptoms but not accepted when we are describing how we have cleared them?
Evidence based medicine seems to be working from a fixed point and the premise that we ‘know’ already. Surely this is back to front, and does not allow for the actual bodily experience that occurs instantly and is completely ‘current’.
When we are truly interested in advancing something we open ourselves to whatever support and inspiration comes our way. If we are interested in true health, all insights and accounts of improved health would be welcomed, looked into and considered. Yes some information may be bogus, as are some research data that are manipulated by invested parties, and such accounts can be put aside once properly looked into. When evidence is outright dismissed without looking at the validity and merit of it, we can rest assured that there is an agenda at play.
It is so important that we claim what is true for us – that we are able to embody if something has supported us, no matter what the perception is. This is true for healing and many of the principles of Universal Medicine – there has been such a tremendous effect on people’s health and wellbeing, and this is their truth.
Jane I had a similar experience just recently I was offered a blood test as I have reached an age where the Doctors feel it would be a great idea to keep an eye on me as I get older so that they can detect any symptoms early. I think this is a brilliant approach and actually quite caring. I have always had low blood pressure and did say to the nurse
“You will find my blood pressure to be low but that’s normal for me.”
She took my blood pressure and it was low and because she didn’t have the time to read back over my medical history to see I have always had low blood pressure she offered me some medication. I declined this offer as my body did not feel at this time it was necessary. As you say Jane just because a GP says something about a suggested approach, doesn’t mean it is a one size fits all as each of our bodies are unique. And in the future I may take up the offer of the prescription. I have to say to me having these tests as I get older is very reassuring and I very much appreciate the care and attention given to me.
Control is very restricting and having a control over the word evidence limits what could brought. A lived experience is for sure evidence and shared can help many others in their understanding of illness and disease, and indeed other areas of life, when it has been truly healed from within as in the esoteric way as Serge presents.
I agree Ruth – lived experience is most definitely evidence, and it is this type of evidence that inspires others to make changes to their own lives – not waiting for scientific/medical evidence to tell them what to do.
Jane, I love this sharing because you are demonstrating how straightforward it is to take responsibility for our own health. All too often we like to give our power away to our doctors wanting them to make it all go away but in paying attention to our own bodies and in being aware of the choices we made that have led to the condition we can be much more discerning as to what will support and what will not.
What a difference it would make if we educated our children to actually tune into their bodies and not only to express how they feel in their bodies/how their bodies feel but to also honour them!
This is a brilliant interview that exposes the ownership of ‘scientific evidence’ – there definitely needs to be more freedom of presenting evidence in the world rather than having it linked to funding and money. Otherwise research becomes about who has the most money and therefore who can publish more so called evidence. So effectively you can buy what is allowed or not allowed in medicine. And then we have to consider that if there are people funding research then they of course must want a return on their investment by making money out of what they are researching so then you have to ask the question what is the true motivation of those funding and carrying out the research – is it really to support humanity and health? Or are there other motives? And then how truly unbiased is this research when there is enormous pressures to deliver results that will make money. We have to divorce research from money.
General Practitioners will always ask for the symptoms that a patient is experiencing in a consultation to inform their subsequent examination and treatment. Why is the account of the individual valued in such a situation as this but then not in another when they are describing the positive effects of a particular type of medicine, juts because the medicine is not fitting what is perceived or has been invested in previously as the way to go.
This really shows we have to be more open to what is good for our health with discernment being the key. When you look at all the people whose lives and wellbeing have been transformed by the teachings and modalities of Universal Medicine, it can no longer be ignored for it is the one thing that will turn the tide on this global wave of ill health.
When we are open to what true evidence is, i.e all evidence in all forms we will no doubt embrace all that Universal Medicine offers as there is no denying the life-changing transformations and quality in the lives of anyone that applies the principles of the ageless wisdom to their life.
Eventually everything, as in every-thing will be proven for what it energetically is. Sure it’s going to take some time, but Truth will prevail because Truth is what underpins everything. We can scribble over the top of it momentarily but its glorious magnitude can’t be suppressed, not even for a moment, it will stand in all its glory again.
It’s super simple. You experience a connection with your body, you explore that feeling and seek further support from an esoteric practitioner who lives and breaths their own connection, and if from that connection you start to notice yourself making changes in your life that are along the lines of taking better care of you, then, hello, that’s some solid evidence right there that there is another way.
It is crazy to me not to accept people’s experiences of improved health as not valid and evidence, especially if a lot of people have similar experiences.
‘…the history of the patient is most important and where the gold lies…….why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover? ‘ – The question already reveals the answer that obviously it would make perfect sense to include the person´s experience plus relating it to ‘objective’ data so that the whole picture is considered to get an understanding of what has contributed to a healing process. Perception is very personal and can only give a certain view of something hence is open for interpretation and opinion but to dismiss it as meaningless is by far not the same as making it part of the bigger picture.
In the UK over the last few weeks the newspapers have been filled to the brim of NHS ‘horror stories’ about the shortage of beds/staff/funding available and thus the impact it has made on patients, but I haven’t seen a single headline that says, ‘QUESTION – WHY ARE WE SICKER THIS YEAR THAN EVER BEFORE?’. It is a so called ‘winter crisis’, but instead of pointing fingers at Government and asking them to solve the problem, which may take years or never produce a ‘result’, why don’t we start looking at why as a humanity we are exhausting the healthcare resources and are more ill, diseased, tired and sick than we have ever been? And how we can live truly well and take responsibility so that we don’t rely so heavily on our NHS or service…
I agree the time has already come when we must look at our responsbilities as health service users and how much we are taking care of our own health rather than expecting the NHS or the government to bail us out.
What a gift to humanity Universal Medicine is, enabling people to re-connect to their self respect and alter deep seated health issues by changing their lifestyle choices. In an age where our health systems are being crippled by self neglect, those who are making the changes are leading the way forward, as the quality of health and vitality speaks for itself and inspires others to respect their health too, evidence that cannot be denied.
We only need to listen to our bodies to know the truth of what we are experiencing in our daily lifestyle choices. There can be no better evidence that what our bodies are telling us.
I had to smile at the definition of evidence, that starts with; the available body of facts…
Truth right there, love it.
Putting people first, listening to and actually hearing what they know has worked or not worked for them is simply common sense and costs very little. Our responsibility is to listen to our bodies and feel for ourselves. The innate wisdom we all have, and which when we truly take the time to listen to our own bodies and express that, cannot be owned. It can though, be an inspiration.
Beautifully said Jeanette.
Instead of dismissing and putting people off from expressing their personal awareness and insights about their own body and their own health, we would be wise as a society to invest in supporting and honouring people’s connection to their bodies, their awareness of what has and has not worked for them and their ability to be responsible for their health.
Its an interesting point to ponder on, when recognising how anectodal evidence is listened to and relied upon in a medical history to describe recent lifestyle and ailments when we go to a GP for help, and yet this same anecdotal reporting / evidence of improvements and changes to health and wellbeing is not held in the same value.
You just can’t beat the wisdom of the body and the importance of staying with and looking after it right from young to our elder years.This is true responsibility and true service.
The body is the greatest revealer of evidence or as said by Serge Benhayon ‘the marker of all truth’.
You know what stands out is the commercial interest that has influenced so many forks in the road of how conditions are perceived especially in mental health. It is something that needs to be addressed today so we can have much greater transparency and therefore go forward to support everyone to live with more harmony.
“Esoteric Medicine understands life, illness and disease at the level of energy.” and this is the key, if we don’t look at the energy of what is causing the condition then we are blindly trying to fix a problem and never truly healing why we got the problem in the first place.
Evidence and research are 2 things that delay responding to what is needed. I hear about so many medical studies where boards and committees need to approve what is happening but this actually delays what is needed. This interview starts to show how a lived experience is in itself evidence – how our bodies are constant reflections of research and study.
How can you in any way define health without including the experience of the person inside the body? What on earth are we collecting evidence for, if it is not about deepening the quality of life each person is living?
If the focus IS about supporting people to deepen their awareness, vitality and engagement with life, as Universal Medicine is doing, when there is even one person showing this, the evidence ought to be taken on board and studied.
When there are hundreds and hundreds of cases claiming an enhanced quality of life, contra to where the bulk of humanity is finding itself, ignoring such evidence is absolutely unforgivable.
A company or scientific approach cannot own evidence because actually it belongs to every individual in this world. Where it begins to make sense and is valuable to observe is when a diverse group of people begin to have comparative experiences as a consequence of receiving the same type of medicine that enables them to change the way they live. This has been my experience with the Universal Healing Modalities as presented by Serge Benhayon, that a diverse cross section of the population are all responding to the healing in the same way, experiences that are documented miracles of efficacy, which present the world with a new paradigm of what true healing is.
Serge Benhayon always advises us to seek medical attention but what he teaches alongside of that is a way to live that is basically very healthy, including how we eat, how we move and how we are in our relationships. All these things have an impact on our health so what he is presenting is a way to prevent a lot of illnesses that are expensive to cure and that occupy hospital beds unnecessarily.
Saying that the body is marker of all truth is indeed true but it’s not quite as cut and dried as that may seem. There is a part of us that is hell bent on lying and so although our body may be clearly showing us that something is not right, we can be so bamboozled by images and beliefs that we can end up seeing it and ignoring it or simply not seeing it. My body showed me for years that my diet did not suit me and neither did strenuous exercise but because I mistook my nervous energy for vitality, I would have sworn blind that my lifestyle was healthy.
If there is any investment in the outcome then the outcome will in some way be corrupt. Therefore when we are asking anything of anyone or anything, (as in the results of a medical study for example) we must make absolutely sure that no one has any investment in anything other than in the truth.
A great discussion to start – I have personally experienced that many doctors, especially those working within a specialized field, are not open or interested in hearing how I turned a medical ill condition from rock bottom to true vitality and an ever increasing health. The most common response I get is ‘oh, you’re just one of a kind’ and my reply is that I am not, but that I am consciously aware of the way I live, the choices I make and above all how I honour and care for myself in my day to day living, in addition to that, how much I am committed to life and other people and how much this all contributes towards my state of health and wellbeing.
It is great to hear this topic being discussed. As I have been studying public health and becoming more aware of the lasting effects of the biomedical model, I can see how empirical rather than anecdotal evidence has supported solidifying the strong hold of this model. The need for researched evidence undermines the importance of the patient experience and makes medical professionals the all-knowing decision makers. The irony with research is that you can do the best most conclusive research, and it can still be ignored, buried, disputed or rejected. What makes it into mainstream is very selective and tends to serve the current ideologies and powers that be.
“The need for researched evidence undermines the importance of the patient experience and makes medical professionals the all-knowing decision makers. …” Yes, great point Fiona, and this is where qualitative research perhaps has a more pivotal and beholding way of researching and understanding the true effects of a topic.
When we start using our full body intelligence we will look back at this time we are living in and most of our past on this planet as quite primitive.
Universal Medicine, purposefully turned the tables upside down in regards to health and well-being. Instead of handing over power to pharmaceutical companies it simply offered this truth, you are responsible for your own health. Yes consult your medical practitioner, but your health is in your hands, measured by how you live. Change your life, make self-loving choices and see how you health feeds you back. The benefits of this approach is evidenced in the hundreds of blogs on this and other Universal Medicine websites.
“Improving our health = not limiting or controlling the word evidence.” I love the title of this blog as it cuts through the current limited thinking we have on health and healing. It rather reminds me of the time when everyone thought the Earth was flat. This thinking didn’t change the truth that the world was in fact round and no matter how much we limit our thinking the truth will always be the truth – it’s just a question of how long it will collectively take us to be open to it!
It’s an odd propensity of human nature to want to deny the truth, to not look at truth and to not want to hear it. We stubbornly hold onto what we know, even if we are shown there is another angle or another way that will enhance or expand what is already known. What if we could collect medical evidence in another format to work alongside what we already have… would this really be so terrible?
There is a lot of pride to break down, isn’t there? We stubbornly hold on if we have something to gain from not admitting the truth. We really need to get honest and real about our investments and be open to seeing the damage we cause by holding on to something that has had its time.
Thank you Eunice and Serge for challenging existing and narrow paradigm that claims one form of medicine (evidence based) is the only way. It is time to accept as valid evidence the experiences of people whose lives and health has been transformed as a result of modalities such a those offered by Universal Medicine. I am a living example of someone whose life changed beyond all recognition. Now, aged 66, I live healthily, lovingly and without any dependence on medication.
There is so much in the news about the privatisation of healthcare services, but are we going to let ‘commercial interests’ govern our SOCIETY and what we classify as true in the first place? We are in danger of much more than just a privatised NHS, for example, but a money making version of ‘truth’ and ‘evidence’ that affects everyone all the time.
‘a money making version of ‘truth’ and ‘evidence’ ‘ – How true, we have lost sight of what true medicine and health is really about, in a constant chase for more profit.
I get and understand why we as a society have resorted to evidence based research which in its purest form is valuable information. When it is selective, funded or if anyone has any investment in it and the information is not based on the absolute facts and diluted then it is not true. As Serge says this is just one avenue of getting evidence. I know that my body and my experiences I have felt and explored has shown me that my body is absolute science, a whole body intelligence that when I connect to no figures or evidence can say otherwise.
Well said and an important point Natalie – it is not the evidence itself but the systems in place to control it which we have created which do not account for the lived evidence from people.
The complexity of controlling evidence, just adds a higher viscosity to the grease that keeps the process running!
Why is medicine so threatened by those who recover from illness and disease?
Surely one would welcome the support considering rates are dramatically increasing, and healthcare is struggling to keep up.
This point in itself is pure gold Eunice…”… the history of the patient is most important and where the gold lies…….why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover?” And, we have so, so much to learn from those who do recover.
If you look at statistics of the overall health of people in the world, their is a trend showing that we are getting sicker, even with all the amazing advances in the medical system.
Maybe it is time to be open to another way of understanding sickness and disease. Serge Benhayon is presenting a way of looking at health that can turn our health crisis around.
I say this because It has worked for me and many people that I know. The Proof is in the Pudding!
Serge Benhayon explodes the current trend that evidenced based medicine is the only way. I so agree because we know from our bodies, from what we feel, without any double blind trials, that the body holds the evidence when we feel different.
The health care system is crumbling under a lack of personal responsibility for an individual’s health and the majority of illness and disease is lifestyle related. I could not help but make a correlation between this and what Serge Benhayon simply and powerfully shared on this video. Individuals who are taking personal responsibility for their health, who are changing their lifestyles to live in a more healthy way and who have benefitted from Universal Medicine Therapies are not being accepted by the medical world until they have something beyond anecdotal evidence. I would have thought given the overwhelming pressure they are facing, they would be more open to anecdotal evidence.
Very true Sarah – we are not so keen to validate evidence which says that we are all responsible for our own health as opposed to being able to blame it on something outside of us or rely on new medication or treatments.
It is so much easier to blame our health on external factors. I remember when mobile phones took off and they were deemed to be cancer devices by many – basically if we can find any cause for our ills where we do not have to take responsibility, we will choose it!
There’s a problem that I envisage arising, if we did start taking everyone’s spoken word as gospel, without feeling the truth of the energy that the words were said in, and that is that so many of us swear that we feel better as a result of a new diet, attending boot camp or taking supplements. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for using people’s transformations as evidence of the effectiveness of a modality, it’s just that for years and years I would have espoused the benefits of strenuous exercise and being a vegetarian as a really healthy way to live. If we ask ‘who is going to be the judge of each testimonial and what will be their yardstick?’ then the answer would have to be that any person that is truly connected to the truth of their body would be able to use the truth that is conveyed by another person’s body, as the yardstick. It is impossible for our bodies to lie and so even had I spoken convincingly at length about the health benefits of being a vegetarian and of strenuous exercise, the fact that my words were coming out of a bloated body that was completely depleted would have been evidence enough for another to disregard my testimonial!
Well said Sarah – as a society we are suffering from the fact we place so much weight on scientific proof, proof that is not delivering a way of life that is working for the majority of people, who’s day in day out life style cannot be called healthy if we use a true measure of vitality and mental and physical wellness as a reference point. And so, when people come along who are not dominated by the need for scientific evidence but rather follow what leads them to an actual way of living that is healthy, it is not accepted because we are so used to deriving our way of life from science, not from truth. And that is not to say that science and truth can’t be one and the same, but truth is more than figures on the page that have been bought to fit a preconceived bias.
It’s quite disgusting to consider, but money does by truth, and always has done. With this as the case in scientific research we are stunted and harmed by the truth being hidden – the truth being of the body and the immense intelligence it holds, if only we were to listen more widely as a society.
As well I feel that in a time where many illnesses are exponentially growing, obesity is huge and other societal problems are not seeming to settle in any way, we have to be open to anyone who experienced a way of true healing when it is expressed so and confirmed in his or her body and vitality.
It is very poignant to hear Serge Benhayon talk about the dark ages, and how this way of life can be brought back simply by a mass conformity to a one-way of thinking that does not allow for anecdotal evidence to be a valid bearer of truth.
A brilliant and inspiring interview, asking questions we’ve all probably considered but not necessarily voiced. One that struck me particularly was the question Serge Benhayon asks at the beginning – ‘is the truth being bought’? It is through these profoundly honest questions that we realise what we have tacitly accepted and allowed to be. The corruption in our societies is not out there separate from us, it is the end-result of how we are interacting with everything in life there is to interact with.
” She ( Doctor Eunice Minford ) has a personal interest in exploring beyond the current paradigm of Western Medicine ”
It’s so wonderful to have a medical doctor explore the possibility that there is more to medicine than what meets the eye , thank you.
This is a great interview and such common sense. Imagine if I couldn’t go the doctor and say I have a sore throat without first having a double blind randomised control trial?
Just who decides what is evidence? Why would someone’s account of their own experience not be accepted as evidence? Surely the account of the person actually residing in the body is one of the most important factors in any analysis. At times it seems we accept approaches to life that on closer examination simply do not make sense.
Observation is the earliest form of evidence therefore, applying this observation to our body which is right under our own nose is anecdotal evidence that surely can’t be dismissed.
It makes sense to see a lived experience as evidence, our body knows and clearly communicates what works for it and what doesn’t, improved health, vitality and life cannot be denied, but it can be dismissed if it doesn’t fit with what we limit to evidence.
I now enjoy a level of health and vitality never before experienced in my life and I know beyond all doubt that all the Universal Medicine Healing Modalities and in particular the Esoteric Breast Massage have brought about huge and very beneficial changes within my body. My evidence may be ‘anecdotal’, but it is also very clear to see in past and present photos, in the radiance in my skin, the change in my body weight and a sustained increase in my energy levels, anecdotal evidence that is qualitative, quantifiable and irrefutable.
At the end of the day we know what is best for our bodies and we know what heals. We do not need science to let us know. We can allow the wool to be pulled over our eyes if that is convenient, but ultimately the truth can never be hidden, just ignored.
With the state of the world’s health in what appears to be a crisis situation it concerns me that a large majority of the medical field are still wearing blinkers as to the reasons why. When it’s clearly shown that lifestyle choices are the root cause of a large proportion of the illness and disease affecting humanity it is puzzling why this is not where the research is being focussed, instead of demanding evidence based research which appears to be overlooking the human factor. An interview like this amazing one ought to be compulsory viewing for all medical professionals; maybe then they might consider taking off their blinkers and start to see the bigger and very healing picture that Serge Benhayon is offering.
We cannot rely completely on a single avenue of medicine or evidence, because life is not one dimensional so in order to paint the full picture it has to be explained through many different mediums, angles and dimensions.
Our bodies show us whether something is working or not which is why Serge Benhayon refers to it as “the marker of all truth”. If we are looking for evidence as to whether something works or not then we have to look no further than our body. Evidence based medicine is therefore no more complicated than listening to our body and acting on what we feel.
I suppose we just have to carry on until too many people to ignore have had their lives transformed by Universal Medicine and then everyone will have to take notice of the undoubtable evidence at hand.
Right now, evidence is graded according to an epidemiological scale, based on mathematical reliability of the results. It would be interesting to know whether the mathematical reliability translates 1:1 into actual reliability of the result. It seems obviously to be the case but I have a little doubt at times.
Doctors ask us to use a ruler of one to ten for pain felt and then push and prod the area of question till it hurts. Are they ignoring what we are offering as evidence?
How strange to think we have to prove something first with clinical tests and trials that last years, when so many people suffering the same illness may testify to their GP the fact that there has been healing in their body through that treatment.
I love the analogy with drinking alcohol .. or rather the truth that Serge has shared where the body is the marker of all truth .. and the far wiser one, when a form of ‘intelligence’ can say I can do whatever I want and and the body is saying no you cannot.
As much as I have not wanted to listen at times to what my body has been telling me, due to not wanting to really look at what is going on, I could only go on for so long, then my body was very clear that enough was enough. So I started to respect, honour and cherish my body and still to this day I can see elements where this could be even deeper. What this relationship has offered is feeling completely different, it has been literally life changing. For me that is all the evidence that I need.
It seems so obvious that the heart of the problem lies in the fact that the evidence required for scientific or medical proof does not value the expression of people in what has supported them and brought about changes in their life.
Fact is we all live our life by anecdotal evidence, simply called experience, and even those evidence-based scientists can´t live but by their anecdotal lives.
That is very true.
Isn’t it time we open ourselves up to new/different ways of healing considering how we are doing with our health? Improving our health would make such a difference to us all, so the things that work, where people say they benefit from should be shared with the rest of the world and not held back because there is not enough so called evidence.
The dark ages of modern science, the new dogmatic religious belief that dominates what can and cannot be true
I find it hard to believe that I would have never heard of full body intelligence and the body being the marker of truth if it hadn’t been for Serge Benhayon for it makes so much sense. We have been kept in the dark for too long and it is time money was invested in truth and true health and wellbeing instead of money just being used to make more money.
Introducing the Golden Age! The body holds the higher form of intelligence.
This is a very potent point that Serge makes in this interview. It makes perfect sense that if a healing modality is anecdotally working for us and making us feel much better and improving our life that this is enough evidence that it is working for us.
I think it’s really important that we don’t ignore or dismiss the ‘evidence’ of our own experience, how we actually feel and respond to things in our body… Just because there isn’t a ‘gold-standard’ randomised controlled trial confirming what we’ve experienced it doesn’t mean that it isn’t true so why wait for something to ‘prove’ what we have already found works…
Evidence based medicine is not enough, we know this because we are getting sicker more often with illnesses that are more complicated and longer lived. The problem is, as Serge Benhayon has shown, that anecdotal evidence does not offer the high financial rewards to the pharmaceutical companies who are very much in control of evidence based medicine. Until we are willing to start listening to the body, read its very simple messages and understand that it cannot lie, will we remain in the hands of the scientists’ evidence based medicine and pharmaceutical companies to control our health service.
True science does not arbitrarily choose what is valid evidence and what is not, it observes the whole and allows the truth to emerge. Our bodies never lie and therefore anecdotal evidence offers us a huge body of scientific evidence that is ignored at our peril.
It’s scary how the world of medicine only sees what they want to see, and is willing to pay large amounts of money to ‘prove’ that what they want to see is actually the truth. How scared we must be of the real truth – the one that we can feel and know to be true, but will not open to or admit to. It just reveals how much we allow ourselves to be run by fear.
If we make evidence about a lived experience that someone has gone through then we start to really open ourselves up to true science, not limited to fit in with a few potential ways that suit the intellect whilst ignoring the body.
To question evidence based medicine as it currently stands is needed. It makes sense that a person’s testimony on their own health is also valid evidence.
The evidence based model doesn’t work when it’s purpose is to make money not heal.
It’s important to have these kinds of conversations, to share different viewpoints and openly discuss where medicine is and what’s happening with evidence based medicine. I agree that if it’s good enough for a court of law for a witness to give evidence, then why not anecdotal evidence in medicine?
Western medicine and complementary medicine as presented by Universal Medicine, are designed to work together. It will only take some time before the evidence of the improved lives of the many that have experienced the combination will be accepted as evidence for the way to go forward in supporting people with health care and in their overall wellbeing.
You can not argue with life experience based common sense, but what you can do is to dismiss it arbitrarily by any kind of logic or argument that is claimed to be of higher value simply because you say so. Should that arbitrarily claimed argument be supported by a group of people who for whatever reason have some sort of influence, power, the louder voice etc natural common sense can be overwritten, defamed or ridiculed, but that doesn´t mean common sense is wrong or meaningless, it is simply ignored until it can´t be ignored any longer as what is true can be suppressed only for so long and that is especially the case for everything to do with the body. The body is unable to lie or suppress, it only knows truth; that´s what the current paradigm of evidence-based medicine and science one day need to catch up with.
Science and medicine have enormous potential in offering much great good to humanity. And they currently do offer an enormously needed great good to humanity yet the potential for what they can offer is yet higher and vaster than what they currently are. Unfortunately, the drive for profit and the greed of money has been often placed before the truth of what is needed by humanity and in this they lose their true purpose in what they are here to offer us all. I feel that a key part of this is the importance of being open to all the evidence available anecdotally and not just limit what truth is to that proven in a lab.
In this interview Serge Benhayon superbly, clearly and eloquently presents the truth of anecdotal evidence.
It is interesting how we manipulate evidence to suit our needs. To me there is no difference in the quality of evidence when a doctor takes a patient’s medical history and someone validating the effect of a healing session. Both have equal validity, as only we know best how our body feels and what is of benefit and what is not.
Simply to question what defines evidence is asking us to look at something we have not consciously investigated. This is a huge can of worms that is about to burst open especially now that more and more is coming out about the way the experiments that produce the so called evidence are being conducted. We have been willingly blind and it is time to wipe the sleep from our eyes and redefine evidence.
Scientists have tried to analyze what makes organic food taste better, and failed. The only laboratory we have not managed to copy and improve on, is the human body.
“Evidenced based medicine currently dominates the Western model but who decides what is ‘evidence’? ” a great question, just what is evidence and if different people have different views on this then perhaps we are missing out on the living evidence that people hold when they change their lives.
What the modalities offered by Universal Medicine present is absolute healing. I say this from the experience my own body has had from building more love awareness and care that supports the every day of how I am living.
Spoken with authority from someone who has experienced this for themselves! Which is truer, an authority that comes from remembered facts and a sense of ownership of them, or a lived authority that comes from the body experiencing the illness/dis-ease and the healing?
Surely one of the primary pieces of ‘evidence’ we look to when we are assessing our health is how we feel. I go to my GP when I don’t ‘feel well’. He doesn’t ask me to ‘prove it’ by the way, although he does ask me what I am feeling. If we make lifestyle changes, have wellbeing or healing sessions and end up feeling better, more vital, more joy-full, this too is evidence, no doubt. How we feel in our bodies is fundamental in our assessment of wellbeing and rightly so. It is for me our foremost guide and so ignoring the ‘body’ of evidence that is what we all feel is not at all wise in my view. Just to add, I do feel very much more alive, vital, aware and joy-full since embracing and changing my life based on the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and this is absolutely how I evidence the effectiveness of what is presented.
I wonder if the doctor is so overwhelmed by the work in front of them and by the increasing pressures on doctors to heal and alleviate pain and suffering, that there is no room for being wow’ed or interested in how someone got better because there is just relief they are better and not on their list of ‘to-dos’ any more.
Anecdotal is vital when it comes to understanding someone. The evidence based model doesn’t cover everyone but feels like being stuffed into a box of symptoms and solutions. But we are so much more than the symptoms our bodies present to us.
I agree Leigh, it does feel very restrictive and totally dismisses the truth of the individual.
In a court of law different types of evidence are examined and used to reach a verdict so why is anecdotal evidence not accepted by the scientific community when it can often be backed up with the visibly improved wellbeing of the person in question? Is there another agenda at play here? It would appear that there are those who do not want anyone to reconnect to the innate knowing that they had as children because then they may change their behaviour and be less worried about going against the grain and doing what feels true for them.
It is amazing to consider just how much lived evidence is not being included in the decisions made in science or medicine because it does not meet the fixed criteria as being valid. If we start to listen to what people say about their experience of life in relationship to the things they choose we would start to find many of the missing pieces of the puzzle. Important to also consider who benefits from the puzzle remaining a puzzle.
It is interesting how this dismissal can contribute to a person’s idea that their voice doesn’t matter, or what they have to say won’t make a difference. This was evidenced in the recent Brexit vote where many people in the UK didn’t vote because they didn’t feel that their vote would make a difference. When we allow ourselves to be controlled by a specific way of thinking, we then end up playing it small, perceiving ourselves as disempowered and yet the reality is that each experience we have is valid to us and therefore valid to the whole. Each voice that is added to the pot generates an exponential authority to what is being presented as valid and true.
Yes michelle819, what you and Michael offer here is the responsibility we bring to our own healing. Without this we ‘load’ our doctors with our gunk, with no responsibility for our own health by saying “here – fix me, I want a magic pill to make it go away but don’t ask me to change any patterns of behaviour or any of the things I love to eat or do. This is your job because you chose to be a doctor.”
I totally agree Michael. We all have so much to share from our lived life experience. We are each a unique science experience and so what may work for one person may not for another. Keeping in mind we are all individuals is key. Yet there are many truths which will relate to us all, the outplay of them may look slightly different.
Very well said Michael especially who benefits from the puzzle remaining the puzzle when it is not a puzzle at all it is really quite simple!
I like countless others are living proof that the modalities of Universal Medicine help improve our health and wellbeing by helping to re-connect to oneself things like alcohol smoking and certain foods just feel far too abusive. Everyone is coming around to the fact that lifestyle choices are the main factor in illness and disease and being more connected to our bodies helps us make better lifestyle choices.
The body provides us with all the evidence we need – we then can convey that evidence by saying what it is we are/have experienced.
Lets stop this ownership of evidence based medicine as I do not want return to the dark ages where we were told what to believe, how to live, what to feel and so on. In fact to incarcerate us again in an age of darkness and coldness that will not bring any advancement to us human beings and any answer to all the problems we are faced with in our current societies.
How can we not accept the fact that our body is our marker of truth? We push our body to the limits it gets exhausted, we lift heavy objects we hurt our back, we smoke cigarettes we damage our lungs, we stay out in the sun we get sun burn, the list goes on. Gosh, we do not realise that we have so much we can learn from what our body communicates with us if we are but willing to take notice.
This interview does beg the question about who does benefit from the statistics, as it’s clear from the past outdated result testing, we are giving our power over to science conducted in this way as we don’t choose to go deeper with our own healing, it’s all surface level.
If we waited around for scientific evidence to prove to us what we feel in our bodies to be true, it would be catastrophic to our global health and wellbeing. We all know from when we are born and young children what feels true, what feels good in our tummy’s and what doesn’t, what touch feels loving and what touch doesn’t and the vibration of everything from words to movements…. yet when we get older we are asked by the current system to dumb that knowing down and rely solely on what is fed to us. This interview highlights how better off our medical and health industries would be if we honoured once again our innate knowing of what our body needs to be healthy, joyful, vital and well and shared that with the world.
Money has become our ‘God’ and we use it to determine what truth is, unfortunately, rather than have it be at the service of truth. Science without the truth first is not science and we need to take care in the road we ‘re on just now where money buys the science you want, not the true science we all can have.
Loved this as well and it’s amazing to see the goal posts moved before our very eyes. What don’t we want people to actually be well? Are there people making to much money from people being ill? What is presented in this interview is in one part common sense and in another part pure gold. We can’t deny and dismiss what someone is saying in one part and then take it as evidence in another part, you could say that this is corruption of evidence.
I agree and I can’t believe I accepted this as a normal way or accepted this as being just how it is. Looking at it now it’s so common sense and so obvious. There’s no consistency to these things and in this case the deletion or disregarding of the entire ‘picture’ is at all our detriment. From here on it’s up to us to lead this simple truth back to the system and support the change that is already there but not yet clearly seen.
Is that the sad and sick true disease – people making money out of others being sick? We not only see that in aspects of so called medical science but also in the food industry and many other areas.
Ooww, don’t touch my food…..kidding and absolutely agree. It seems like everything no matter what the heading is more and more being run like a business or should I say a money train. I and many many others see business in another light but it seems there are many definitions of what business is and in this form we are speaking of business is defined by profits. We have that old saying of ‘people before profits’ and we almost throw it away by saying this, in that we don’t feel what this all means or truly feel how this model of business works. It needs to be ‘outed’ though in this way because it’s a fact we currently choose to do things like business to make money and not have an equal care for the impact it has on people in and around it.
Funny looking at the word business. You could see it as busy-ness and with the busy bring in the greed and me factor or you can see it be-isness where there is an isness that we are all one and everything is for the evolution of all.
With so much focus and attention ‘paid’ to how much things cost and the level of importance given to the cost in relationship to whether you are listened to or not it’s refreshing to see this video and interview. We change the goal posts all around the place, one minute your word is taken as ‘gospel’ and the next minute it can be dismissed. A great interview and one worth sharing.
Awesome interview. We often give our power away to the medical profession when we know the answers in our bodies.
No microscope on Earth will show you the depth of what the body lives and knows to be true from its inner-most essence.
I’ve have found that it is someones personal experience of healing that provides the greatest inspiration for others to also begin healing… because it comes with a truth and wisdom that is deeply felt. This feeling can be avoided but the fact remains it has been felt… it is the responsibility we avoid.
Is evidence-based medicine able to reverse the obesity epidemic which is actually getting worse?
This is a life changing interview. It makes so much simple sense and bring love back into science and medicine. Of course anedocatal evidence is needed and valid! How can it not be when it is capturing our very experience of life? By saying it is not and ignoring it is keeping life out of science and therefore how are we going to ever get any true and whole results?
I find this question alone very exposing: “We are trained in medical school that the history of the patient is most important and where the gold lies…….why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover?”
When we accept one part of the story with open arms and shout down the other, we can be sure that there are invested parties at play. This is not serving Humanity.
Great point that if we write off anecdotal evidence then we’re missing a vital piece of the jigsaw in helping ourselves and society as a whole to understand what keeps us well and what doesn’t. Listening to anecdotal evidence of the illness but then dismissing it when it comes to the healing is a double standard and we accept this as a society to the detriment of our overall health and wellbeing.
Thank you for sharing, when we make life about truly healing and being all that we are then everything changes. The questions begs are we and how much are we willing to take responsibility for all of our choices and actions? It is only when we do that we will see things change for the benefit of all.
“why is it ok to accept this personal testimony when someone is ill but to ignore the same individual’s experience when they report what assisted them to recover? : Eunice this is an amazing question and in my line of work, it also frustrates me that we rely on ‘evidence-based science’ and ignore many aspects of the evidence that is scientific, i.e. how people feel in their bodies.
I can honestly say, anyone that might be interesting in living in a more productive and healthy way would greatly benefit from booking a session at the Universal Medicine Clinic, you will walk out feeling clear and able to make decisions with your health that may have been a struggle in the past, with a new found freedom and ease.
That’s a great point Sarah and these photos say a lot: http://www.unimedliving.com/before-and-after/the-before-and-after-photo-diary/the-before-after-project.html
Evidence is evidence whether 1 person says their life has changed or 20.
Serge says something like ‘is money buying truth? is money buying science? And it does, but it is up to us to show it can’t buy living proof that the modalities talked about here do improve our lives no end and they totally complement western medicine and have never been in conflict. I’m so tired of the saying money talks and it is the big drug companies who do all the talking so they can talk some more.
Studying Mathematics and Statistics really shows me how the trials that are done are set up and carried out in a way where the outcome is, if not already determined, then most definitely angled towards one outcome.
Interestingly, there are then mathematical and statistical means to discern at least in part how much manipulation actually happened. It just takes time and a lot of skills to employ these forensic tools and there is little return for doing so.
Who decides what is ‘evidence’? Great point that the patient is listened to when giving their history but dismissed if their healing experience falls outside the currently recognised norm. With increasing levels of illness and disease caused by lifestyle choices it is imperative that we widen our understanding of true health and how we can make changes to support living in this way.
This whole topic always raises a question for me about the basis of the evidence base itself. Are we purely physical beings and is the evidence base founded on that belief? Or are we greater, multi-dimensional beings? If we are more than physical beings, and I would say there is some pretty strong evidence to suggest we are, then what impact does this have on the way we approach medicine and our physical issues?
‘Is there more to Medicine than just what money can buy?’ Great question! As someone who has recovered from ill-health I can testify that the Western Medicine can be greatly helped by patients themselves living a healthy lifestyle.
Loved the interview Eunice. What Serge Benhayon shows here is that we are still in the dark ages as far as western medicine is concerned. We may have all the latest technological advances to diagnose, but as far as why we get the illness in the first place, western medicine doesn’t really have the answers, and rely on tests and trials that don’t consider our life style and the bodies intelligence, and the messages we are constantly receiving, but choosing to over rule. It makes sense that science doesn’t like anecdotal evidence because it can’t own it and make money from it.
Incredible – the voice of the client needs to be acknowledged in research, as does the unexpressed bias and corruption that occurs in the world of research to push points of view that are acceptable to the mainstream view.
‘Is there more to Medicine than just what money can buy?’ Great question! As someone who has recovered from ill-health I can testify that the Western Medicine can be greatly helped my patients themselves living a healthy lifestyle.
It’s great to have such common sense available in our consideration of what constitutes evidence and for me the factor which we all need to be more aware of is the influence of commercial interests in what is accepted as valid evidence in science, medicine and pharmaceuticals.
Superb interview that clearly emphasizes the importance of a person’s experience in contributing integral evidence. If it only takes one person to confirm a crime, then it only takes one person to confirm the effects of a healing modality. I confirm, unreservedly, that Universal Medicine and all its healing modalities have significantly improved the quality of my health and life beyond all expectation.
Another superb interview with the philosopher, Serge Benhayon, presenting the truth that anecdotal evidence is valid evidence – common sense, really.
I for one can put my hand up and say that my experience with the Universal Medicine modalities and the Esoteric Breast Massage (EBM) has simply been life changing. I remember the day I first had an EBM and how it left me in a place where I was able to feel that there was a quality within me as a woman that I had not been connected to. With many more session following I am forever deeply appreciative of the EBM as I now have a connection with my body that is super delicate, loving and honouring of the woman that I truly am. A far cry from where I was on my first session.
A great discussion and a very important one as well. In everyday practice of medicine it is anecdotal evidence that is relied upon. A person’s experience; a patient’s, a family member’s, a nurse, a doctor etc. We all have a perspective on providing or receiving health care and what we are observing with another or with ourselves. In fact it is the foundation of medical and nursing practice. I had a conversation with a GP only the other day, explaining what I felt was going on for his particular patient. Yes there was some physical observations, but I also had other concerns that were not limited to a physical observation. The GP was open to what I had to say and then agreed. We need to be open to all possibilities.
A beautiful point. To have evidence-based medicine say that their way is the only way is introducing us back into the dark ages. Serge clearly busts through the grip evidence-based medicine has on current thinking in presenting anecdotal evidence as completely valid.
I appreciate very much these interviews that bring light into medicine and everything involved in it.
Since my introduction to Universal Medicine 13 years ago my life has changed in so many ways. I have experienced many amazing turnarounds in some physical issues, one being the healing of the chronic Sciatica that I had suffered from for more than 40 years. This came about from making a choice to live the common sense and wisdom presented by Serge Benhayon and to experience the many Universal Medicine healing modalities. If someone wanted evidence of this they would simply have to take me at my word, as that is the truth of the situation. Sadly, that would not be enough for the current medical model as it demands vigorous testing to provide evidence based proof. It staggers me that this is the way of medicine today, a way that totally ignores the lived experience of so many people.
The word ‘evidence’ has this connotation of it being absolute. It makes me reflect back on the times I needed to be confirmed and reassured, that I felt somehow my own experience and feeling was not enough, like ‘evidence’ had to be manufactured to get to the truth. And I realise now how that was the back to front as an evidence is simply what is, and truth already is.
Very is true Fumiyo, but first tell me how many heads, arms and legs do you have and can you prove it?
Thank you Eunice – these short interviews with Serge Benhayon are profound. This video offers an opportunity for all to see and understand the wider picture about ‘evidence’.
“we are all capable of understanding our own truth”
Limiting and controlling has been a standard used for years. One only needs to look at the flawed evidence that dismissed the ill effects of smoking for years.
I think it is really important to consider why some areas of medicine and science can be so dismissive of anecdotal evidence… Interesting to consider the commercial ‘interests’ at play that may be behind this in some instances and how much we can negate the intelligence of our whole body.
Interesting how medicine accepts what we have done to reduce our health – ie smoking, drinking, drugs etc as evidence, but when we can show how much we have improved our health – by giving up those things and by using other modalities then we need expensive trials to show this. Surely we are all living evidence – our bodies clearly show this.
Is evidence owned by money? Without doubt, as big pharma have no interest in researching anything other than that which can line their pockets, despite ‘evidence’ of other modalities that can produce better and cheaper options. We are all living evidence.
I also feel this is the case because a couple of years ago I was looking into bioidentical hormones instead of HRT and was told that the NHS cannot supply them, only HRT. My understanding is that the ‘big pharma’ cannot patent the bioidentical hormones so they do not make any money, and would rather women use a product more suitable to a female pregnant horse than something that is identical to her body.
When we can accept (and build upon) what someone says of their experience of increased health and wellbeing from changes they’ve made because of these healing modalities, we will, by welcoming their truth be benefiting everyone in society.
Anecdotal evidence is just that, evidence.
Yes evidence based medicine should not be The Only gold standard, it can be super helpful in cases as Serge rightly pointed out of the effects of medication, but it loses its way when you feel that what you experience yourself is not a marker of what is true because it hasn’t been proved in a double blind randomised trial. The fact is, for most things in life it is impossible to test it in such a trial as there are so many factors that play out in life that we can’t just erase. The erasing is often done and championed in such trials, or at least attempted to, so they can just test the effect of that one thing but this is actually not like us at all. Life itself is actually the truest way of science and we can’t try to isolate the two.
Is it disrespectful, damaging if not downright abusive to call a discipline science that belittles if not ignores the walking and talking evidence of living and breathing human beings who have found something that works and who walk their talk, for all to see. Is it too confronting perhaps?
What has happened to common sense? Or, is that the purpose malpractice insurance? If it has feathers, a bill, webbed feet and quacks…
I absolutely agree Gabriele, it is an absolute dismissal of the innate knowingness that can show us the way and will make much of what we have created int his world obsolete and will bring all responsibility back to us…is this is what is too confronting for us?
It is true and that simple… there is no doubt after every session I feel the benefits in my body from having any one of the Esoteric modalities – that is evidence the same as if I were to express to my GP what was going on in my body if I were to experience an illness.
Great interview Eunice. All the evidence I can see in this world leads me to feel that our current approach is not working. So what are we missing? The example Serge Benhayon shares of witnessing murder is so spot on – every voice matters and should be considered not just those with sizeable bank balances.
The question you are asking Joseph is the important question….”What are we missing?” We know that what we have in health care is fantastic, but it’s not it. If it was it we would not be seeing the level of complex chronic diseases caused by our own lifestyle choices. I live in a small rural town and I would be interested to know what the numbers of health practitioners are to the average population. My feeling is there would be 1 health practitioner to 50 people. One would think given that, that we should have great health. Not to mention the health of the health care professional. Something is not right if the health care professionals are sicker than the people seeking health care. We are definitely missing something indeed.
Well said Joseph – yes every voice (and body) counts regardless of the depth of the wallet.