Modern Medicine: The New World Religion: How Beliefs Secretly Influence Medical Dogmas and Practices

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 112 pages
• Published by: Personhood Press April 1, 2004
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1932181148
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1932181142
• Book Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Weighs: 4 ounces

Product Description
Put forth in this book is the assertion that medicine is actually ruled by a set of beliefs, myths, and rites of Christianity it has never freed itself from. Supporting this claim are discussions about the ways in which physicians have taken the place of priests, vaccination plays the same role as baptism, the search for health has replaced the quest for salvation, and the hope of physical immortality (cloning and genetic engineering) takes priority over eternal life. This book argues that the medical establishment has become the government's ally, as the Catholic Church has in the past. "Charlatans" are prosecuted today, as "heretics" were in the past, and dogmatism rules out promising medical theories. It contends that only by becoming aware of how religious beliefs and primitive fears unconsciously influence one's relationships with medicine can people start walking on the path of freedom, personal responsibility, and individual sovereignty.

About The Author
Olivier Clerc is a journalist and the author of a number of books in French. He was the editorial director of Jouvence, a Franco-Swiss publishing house that specializes in health, spirituality, and personal development. Michael Misita is the author of How to Believe in Nothing & Set Yourself Free.

Reader Reviews
In simple, every-day language, Olivier Clerc challenges the dogma of Modern Medicine, and our often "religious" respect for it. As a Swiss-born popular philosopher and writer (now a long-time resident of France), Clerc offers a perspective an American writer might not be able to. Although sympathetic to Robert S. Mendelson's "Confessions of a Medical Heretic," Clerc approaches the question of medicine from a different angle. He explains how Louis Pasteur-commonly credited as the father of Modern Medicine-compromised his research and conclusions in order to accommodate his ardent Catholic faith, and then deliberately designed a medical practice that would parallel the Catholic Church structure, with Doctors acting as priests, nurses acting as "sisters," the check-up acting as the "confessional" etc. For an American readership, I think Clerc's arguments would have been stronger had he addressed the financially-driven aspects of the multi-billion dollar medical complex. But Clerc doesn't go there--probably because European socialized medicine is less influenced by the bottom line than in the States-but also because he is avoiding easy blame and criticism. Instead, Clerc is interested in challenging paradigms. He wants us to examine our own attitudes toward medicine, and so he puts the responsibility on each of us to be more aware and independent regarding health-care choices. The book is written as an extended "essay," and reads almost as if Clerc is writing a letter to a friend. As he states clearly, it is not intended as a comprehensive anlysis of today's medical practices, nor an expose of its shortcomings. Rather, it exposes the social and psychological contradiction of why we don't think of modern medicine as a religion but we treat it like one, and what we need to do differently. This book opened my eyes to facts I had never read or even heard about before. A must read for all those interested in alternative and holistic health-care and the right to practice it.