Telos Journal Edition Four November 2013 | Page 16

actions will not be powered, actively or prohibitively, from the division of our first
embryonic cells to restful states to the dodging of that truck that casually pulled into
your driving lane without a seeming peripheral care in the good world.
Where do genes fit into these internal and external environmental pictures? They
fascinate the public because they clairvoyantly appear to contain the hallmarks of
individual fate. And they still play a prominent role in the world of oncology as they are
frequently blamed for causing malignancy both in health propaganda and respected
medical literature. “You can have a breast cancer gene,” says Dr. Katharina, “which
means you are more likely to develop breast cancer at some point in your life than the
average woman, but this does not necessarily mean that you will develop cancer. It just
means your risk is higher than the average woman’s.”
She seems more excited about epigenetics than genealogy; she’s more interested in
the toxic rather than genetic influences of cancer. Your health beliefs are major here. In
one of her lectures she says: “What you believe is one important factor that will
determine whether you will get sick or stay healthy, because the power of belief is so
strong that it can change the way these genes operate in your body.” Many other
therapists agree. Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles, thinks that
the dynamic of self-determination is more powerful than any type of therapy in cancer
treatment success rates. ‘Mind over matter’ is rather a matter of 50/50, a kind of
nonaligned balance of environmental and individual considerations.
Those of us who think that cancer is caused by genetics, ‘everything’, or somehow falls
from the sky have been deluded either by mortal and morbid psychology or by a wildly
profit-orientated industry—a placing of our own health beyond our conscious reach
and into the subliminal design of behavioral ‘drive-through’ medicinal convenience,
the erotic enticement of fear, or the flat shirking of responsibility of our own wellness
measures.
Since the malignant numbers are on the rise, the moment for optional ‘awareness’,
taking the ‘red or blue pill’, jumping down the ‘rabbit hole’ or not, coming out of Plato’s
cave or remaining shackled to a limited reality—has lingered past its time for practical
efficacy as cancer becomes the unsolicited bastard of myriad families.