Now these philosophers, in keeping with the attitude that found them their name, were a highly motivated lot. I mean work to them was more than just a means of keeping up one's car payments - they loved their work. And like anybody who loves what they do, they got a lot done.

However, with the discovering of knowledge being motivated by this most motivating of attitudes, there could be only one possible result, that being that a great deal of information was gathered. In fact so much knowledge was assembled that there developed something of a storage problem, something of a problem in filing this information under the one blanket heading "Philosophy". The problem was dealt with by redirecting this information to sub-categories which were created within and eventually beyond this philosophical framework. The aspect of philosophy which dealt with the quantitative and numerical world became known as "Mathematics". The aspect of philosophy which dealt with the interaction of physical matter became known as "Physics". The aspect of philosophy that dealt with the interaction of matter at the atomic level became known as "Chemistry", while the aspect of philosophy that dealt with the large pieces of matter that existed in the space beyond the surface of the earth became known as "Astronomy".

It was as though Philosophy the mother was giving birth to the physical sciences - and a fertile mother she was for as these physical sciences were growing strong and making their place in the world, she produced her second family, the social sciences: "Psychology", "Economics", "Political Science", "Sociology", which in turn went off to find their own independent existence.

From this productive life, this great, this greatest mother of knowledge emerges with a certain residual pride and yet sadly weakened and depleted by her self sacrifices to her children, for what does the word philosophy mean in a contemporary context? Certainly only a shadow of its former self, holding now under its rubric only those fields of study which have not as yet became large enough to find independence, only those fields of knowledge that were not able to leave home and make their own place in the world. The word today holds within its grasp the three fields of knowledge which never came to demand the degree of attention that the physical and social sciences did. Referring to a contemporary dictionary reveals that philosophy now means: "the study of the principles behind things", "the study of ethics" and "the study of metaphysics". But what became of the "Philosophy" that was known to the ancient Greeks? What became of that wonderful concept encompassing the love of all knowledge? It theoretically could still exist, except with Philosophy's symbolic erosion though its division into all those sub-categories, the whole idea of loving knowledge seems to have been lost in the confusion. There are those, of course who, who in fact apply their energies to the love of all knowledge, yet can find themselves at something of a loss for a way of describing themselves. If they call themselves philosophers, people might check their dictionaries, and come to te incorrect conclusion that they are devoted exclusively to the study of ethics, metaphysics or the study of principles. But what are they to be called?

The erosion of time has left us without a term for one who studies beyond the framework of specialization, and yet the world is of a time when knowledge beyond the naivete of narrow minded isolationist attitude is becoming increasingly appropriate. We need a new term for a student who wishes to recognize him or herself as a student of all knowledge. We need a word that describes one who seeks knowledge from all fields without prejudice toward any particular one - Perhaps we can build our own word.

Take the word "poly" meaning "many" and combine it with the suffix "ology" meaning: "the study of". There we have the word: "Polyology". Let us define it as meaning: "study from the perspective of all knowledge". Polyology: a new word resembling what the ancient Greeks used to mean by the word Philosophy.

To a large extent, what we as individuals believe is within the scope of possibility for our particular life experience, is limited by what words we have to describe that range of possibility. If all the words we normally use are words which tend to reduce our viewpoint so that we may consider no more than part of the total picture, then we face a major inhibition in our attempt to become truly wholistic in our understanding. Viewing learning from a "polyological" perspective, however, leads our thinking to an expansive attitude which we might call: "wholistic academics"

Health and healing are often seen as falling into two categories, one being science based medical practice and the other being the so called "holistic" therapies. These two approaches to the art of health care, stemming from different sets of philosophical principles, pursue their objectives by quite different methods.

Science based healing, the approach that is taught to our regular western medical doctors, looks at diseases, viewing them as resulting from specific causes which are potentially understandable by any sufficiently knowledgeable onlooker. Healing within this framework involves gathering objective information about the causes of disease and devising ways of removing these causes.

Holistic healing, on the other hand, although it is not averse to dealing with the causes of disease if these causes appear readily knowable, does not commit itself so firmly to finding objective "scientific" information about the actions of various disease causing agents. It instead directs its attention upon the more subjective issue of working with the individual whose particular health is in question. This form of treatment might even be given to someone having no particular medical problems or symptoms, someone who came to a practitioner motivated simply by a desire to become optimally healthy.

The disease focussed medical system would have difficulty in justifying the treating of someone simply because he or she wished to aspire to the height of his or her potential, however, and would prefer to explain such action as "preventative medicine"- the treating of some expected future disease. From the holistic perspective, however, it is not necessary to be concerned with any disease, either present or expected. Within the holistic framework one need not be suffering in order to desire to seek ones healthiest state of mind, body and spirit.

From some perspectives holistic and scientific medicine are seen as in competition and even in opposition to one another. Sometimes science oriented practitioners jealously defend the right to exercise control over the health care system, criticizing other healers for not adhering rigorously to the principles of the biomedical model. Other times those who find the road to good health as one that leads away from the scientific approach are sometimes seen as deriding scientific medicine, blaming it for imposing unnecessary limitations upon the practice of the healing arts.

There are many of us, however, who believe that competitiveness between health practitioners does not represent a healthy attitude from any perspective, and does not lead to the best in service for those seeking to be healed. Most health practitioners, be they scientific or non-scientific, are able to help some of their clients. It is hard to imagine any practitioner staying long in business without having had some successes. When it comes to dealing with disease, however, no practitioner is able to deliver every ailing person with an effective cure. Life would be wonderfully simple and secure if one kind of healer was able to deal with the whole spectrum of people and their various ailments-but this is not the way it is.

Scientific medicine has worked out some effective ways of dealing with a number of kinds of problems. It is able to get rid of many kinds of pathogens by the use of various pharmaceutical drugs, and it is also able to perform some incredible feats of surgical reconstruction. Impressive as it is, however, its effectiveness covers a limited scope. According to Herbert Benson, M.D., a well known Harvard Medical School Cardiologist, medicine is able to deal effectively with only twenty-five percent of the medical problems it is presented with. What happens to the other seventy-five percent? Some remain for the life of the patient, while some mysteriously go away - and some are dealt with effectively by other kinds of practitioners.

The fact is that medical doctors help some people, acupuncturists help some, shamans help some, naturopaths help some, biokinesiologists help some etc. The question which sometimes occurs to me is: Why would any practitioner who is clearly aware of the fact that his or her form of healing does not solve all health problems try and convince us that we should not seek help from others?. This in effect is what competitiveness amounts to, however. It promotes a bias toward one's own kind of service while extending a corresponding negativity toward services offered by others. From the point of view of the patient, the objective is to get the best in treatment. The patient wants to know who might be able to contribute to his or her recovery but has no interest being caught in the cross-fire between different practitioners promoting their personal identities and business interests.

The methods used to encourage this step toward self involvement and responsibility take a variety of forms, however, and, when viewed from the eye of one not familiar with the process, they might be found confusing or even suspicious. For my own part, when I see something going on in the healing business that I can not make easy sense out of, I simply limit my judgement to one of pure practicality. In other words, if a healing technique works, if it in some way contributes to someone's becoming more healthy without in some other way making them less healthy, then it must be valid. Never mind if it makes sense - if it works use it!

To a holistic practitioner, the form a healing technique takes depends, to a large extent, on what will encourage you to take this step toward self involvement. What approach will be the one that will convince you the patient that it is time for you to make yourself well. It depends on what kind of drama is sufficient to reach inside your consciousness at the very deepest level and convince you that getting well is not only possible but is also something that you want to do. Perhaps you may respond to the drama of interacting with a psychological counselor, or you may respond to the drama of interacting with your spiritual guides while you are in a shamanic trance, or to an entity channelled for you from another dimension, or to Jesus or the Buddha. Perhaps, even, you might respond to the drama of some nice person with a medical degree handing you a bottle of pills. But whatever you need in order to heal yourself is acceptable treatment, providing it works for you, providing you walk away having convinced yourself at all levels of your being that it is time to become healthy.

But what about actual quacks? To consider that question we must give some thought to what we actually mean by the term. Does having failed at an attempt to heal constitute a quackery? I certainly hope not, because that would invalidate every health practitioner in town - nobody but nobody in the healing arts is infallible. Does accidentally having caused a negative side effect constitute quackery? I also hope not, because that would demand that we dismiss all those practitioners who must take risks in the pursuit of the objectives of their work. It would certainly cause us to get rid of most of the medical doctors. According to writer Norman Cousins (Anatomy of an Illness) approximately 10% of hospital beds are occupied by those suffering from nothing other than the adverse effects of medical treatment. Doctors, however, while they avail themselves to the best information within the range of their profession, and engage in their practice with sincere intentions should be given credit for their contributions and forgiven their shortcomings. But they must also be employed within the range of their competence. It would be foolish to employ a particular physician whose expertise is limited to administering pharmaceutical medications to deal with a problem of nutrition or a problem of spirit.

The same criteria that we judge medical doctors by could well be used to judge the competence of other forms of practitioners. Those who, after adequately preparing themselves, perform their work with sincere intentions, should be given the right to offer their services to the public without prejudice. Adequate preparation is of profound importance, however. It must necessarily include becoming thoroughly familiar with all that is known of the effects of whatever substances they administer. It would be as foolish to accept natural medications from an incompetent herbalist as it would be to accept pharmaceuticals from an incompetent doctor. Adequate preparation must in fact include acquiring a thorough knowledge of the effects of all forms of treatment administered.

One form of healing cannot necessarily be judged, however, by the standards of another. It is as pointless to undertake to reject the practice of shamanism by the standards of scientific medicine as it is to reject scientific medicine by the standards of shamanism. All forms of healing have their successes and their failures. The worst approach, from the point of view of those of us who would be healed, is that practitioners of the various disciplines hide themselves in a corner behind the limitation of their own lack of understanding and from there engage in petty politics designed to discredit what they interpret as competition. The best approach, from the point of view of those of us who are seeking to be healed, is that practitioners of all forms of healing become aware of the principles and methodology of other forms of healing practice and use this awareness for an interdisciplinary exchange of learning and understanding.

Shamanism, Science and the Wholistic View of Man

Perhaps the most important thing we can say about shamanism is simply that it works. Shamanic practice effectively helps make sick people better. Many observations and studies have been made throughout the world, carried out by reliable witnesses, studies and observations which undeniably support its effectiveness. But - the acceptance of shamanism as a valid medical procedure has been by no means universal.

To those people who choose a less analytical approach to life, the acceptance of shamanic medicine is a simple matter. Given that its views do not represent any disturbing incompatibility with their personally held religous views, they tend to take a simple pragmatic approach, reasoning that if it works then it must be just fine. This accounts for the billions of people who have relied upon it for thousands of years.

To those of us who choose to bear the burden of the complexities that go with a more analytical approach to life, on the other hand, coming to terms with shamanism is much less simple. To the analytical, to the scientifically inclined, whether something works or not, is sometimes less important than whether it makes sense. This attitude has been the basis of the difficulty in integrating this kind of healing into "civilized" western society, because from an analytical scientific point of view, the shamanic view of shamanism simply does not add up. The practice of shamanism views illness not as a matter of poisons and pathogens, but rather as an issue of spirit. Spirit, however, is a concept that the world of science and rational thought has a great deal of difficulty in accepting. In fact the whole idea that there might exist such a thing as a spirit, is totally incompatible with scientific thinking.

Spirits do not subject themselves to formal observations and measurement, and if something can not be formally observed and measured, science simply will not deal with it. So fundamental is this incompatibility, in fact, that the most the scientific establishment can do with spirituality is sidestep the whole issue, attributing its effects to something more in line with its own view of reality.

To the shamans, this whole analytical procedure is rather silly. To a shaman the spirit is clearly the part of us that is alive. It is the part of us that distinguishes us from the collection of chemicals and chemical processes to which the scientific mind feels so devoted. From the shamanic point of view, attempting to heal someone with out recognizing his or her spirit, is attempting to maintain life while ignoring the essence of its existence. Treating someone while denying the existence of the spirit is treating them as if they were already dead.

Science, in the meantime, seems to have found considerable conflict over this issue, for on the one hand it sees a widely used, successful healing technique which, on the other hand, includes an element which it cannot handle, an element that within the constraints of its view of the world, simply does not exist. Shamanism cannot be accepted on its own terms because this would involve accepting something that cannot be observed and measured, thereby invalidating the whole basis of scientific thinking.

The first reaction to this conflict, on the part of the scientific community, was one of denial in spite of the evidence. Never mind whether it worked or not, the reaction was simply that if it does not make sense, then it must be nothing more than "hocus pocus". This attitude dominated the scientific view for a long time, and perhaps would persist to the present, had not the evidence supporting the effectiveness of shamanic technique become overwhelmingly convincing.

To understand how the view of shamanic practice has evolved in the eyes of the scientific community, it is necessary to digress briefly and look at scientific methodology.

Science likes to dissect things. It likes to break down the things that it studies into component parts, so that it may observe these parts without having its view obscured by whatever else might have been in the way. It does this in a literal sense of the word - it likes to actually cut things up and have a look - but more important, it likes to dissect things conceptually, breaking them apart analytically, so that it may observe with an unobscured analytical view.

Under many circumstances this can be good research technique, however it comes with a major pitfall. If this technique is not used carefully and with proper perspective, it can leave the researchers and those who accept their conclusions 'believing' in parts. It can leave us believing that the parts are important entities on their own, more important than that from which the parts were originally taken.

This is the logical distraction that led us into a distorted view of man him/herself. Being a subject of scientific curiosity, the human body was analytically dissected, and, in the process, the view of the human being as a "wholistic" unit was lost. This left us acting as though we believed that man existed principally as a collection of the things that man is made of, as though we believed that the proper study of man is man's parts. Our faith in dissectability focussed us on a "compartmentalized" man.

This view left us with more than mere philosophical confusion, as it affected many of our social institutions, and particularly our views of medicine. It left the medical establishment inclined to examine symptoms as if they existed in a vacuum, and organs as if they were independent organisms existing aloof from the body in which they reside. It also left us with the "dualistic" view of man, a view that saw the human divided into two independent elements - body and mind. This dualistic view of man led us directly into a dualistic view of medical treatment, where one type of specialist in one kind of medical facility treats problems of the body, and another king of specialist in a different facility treats problems of the mind.

This is the science, with its dissected, dualistic view that was looking for a place to fit shamanism into it scheme. It happened that by this point in history, the two part system of health treatment had come up with a maverick category of disease that insisted on bridging that gap between those two neat little categories of sickness. These were diseases that were seen as originating in the mind then jumping over onto the other man, the physical man, and there-in creating physical disease symptoms. They became known as "psychosomatic" disease, and because they defied even the simplest level of definition, were particularly difficult for the scientific mind of that time to make much sense out of it. It was into this confusing category, that shamanism made its entry into scientific acceptability. Perhaps it was because shamans and psychosomatic disease were equally baffling to the scientist, so they put them together, hoping that in all that confusion there must be some kind of explanation. Anyway, the first move in accepting shamanic healing was, to assume that its effect was psychological, and that the type of disease that it was able to treat was disease that was of psychosomatic origin. At that point as one might expect, psychology started adopting elements of shamanic technique into its own healing practice.

Now science, while remaining quite devoted to the use to the experimental method of research, seems to maintain a certain long run flexibility in the interpretation that it makes of the observed world. The view of science moved from a flat world to one that is round, from matter that is made of particles to matter that is made of energy, and nobody seemed to hold it against them that they should have found it necessary to admit to a change of mind. This is fortunate, because it seems that at the present time science is in the process of abandoning another of its fundamental views, the view of that dualistic, compartmentalized man.

A good deal of recent research is pointing to the conclusion that much of what we think, has an effect upon our bodies, while much of what we do with our bodies affects what goes on in our minds. Physical activity such as running, through the action of chemical agents found in the blood, affects our brains and makes us feel good. Conversely the moods we put ourselves in alter our blood chemistry, thereby affecting such as our immune systems. It has been found that many diseases can be treated effectively by using placebos, pills that contain no active chemical agent but effect their curative influence through the patient's belief system. Some exciting experimental work is being carried out involving the use of imagery, showing the relationship of consciously directed thoughts to one's immune system and hormonal balance.

These developments seem to be effectively laying to rest any notions we may have had about the possibility of gaining worthwhile insights by examining ourselves as a collection isolated parts. They are also giving us a new handle on the understanding and accepting of shamanic healing. Shamanic practice certainly seems to work through our belief systems, through the images that it can form in our minds and as a wholstic form of treatment. Now that science is adjusting its view to one more compatible with that of the shamans, the legitimacy of shamanic healing is standing a better chance of being accepted by our culture.

The shamans of course, although they may or may not be pleased to see medical science adjusting its point of view to one more compatible with their own, feel that science is still missing the most important point - that being this whole thing of living successfully on earth is basically a spiritual issue. Never mind whether man is dualistic or not, never mind hormones and imagery and the placebo effect - the bottom line is keeping ones spirit in order.

But we must be careful of things that impress us. Sometimes such things can steal our hearts and lead us through some precarious self deception. We have, it seems, little programs built into our human consciousnesses that encourage us to economize our mind energy. Although we are potentially able to think in depth about things we choose to think in depth about, we would prefer to take the easy way out and think only long enough to form an opinion. Then once we have settled into our comfortable little opinionated state we then allow this opinion to become a comfortable little habit of mind to substitute in place of whatever thoughts might have come next. Except in cases where we can convince ourselves that going over something in detail is necessary, most of us would rather save the effort and form mental habits, limiting our further thinking to these pre-programmed responses.

In regarding things that impress us, we are led rather rapidly through this process of opinion forming. First we develop "trust"; we accept that something in fact works. Then, if we continue to be adequately impressed, we take the next step which is to "faith". This is the big and dangerous part in the whole process, for it is here that we throw away any demands we might have had for continuing evidence. It is here that the relationship we have with that thing that has impressed us becomes of a purely emotional nature. This is that quantum leap beyond the range of the logical mind into pure acceptance. It is rather like falling in love and similarly dangerous - and similarly seductively attractive.

In the early days of our civilized history, when clear minded seekers of understanding known as philosophers were busily designing what was to become the foundations of much of our present day thinking, this inclination toward economizing mind energy, along with its potential for jumping to conclusions, was apparently well understood. Although these dedicated individuals must surely have accepted the value in being able to abandon their intellects at times when it was appropriate to do so - I'm sure that philosophers fell in love at about the normal rate - they could see that at certain times it was definitely not appropriate.

Particularly, they could see that in order to release some of that rich potential hidden in the mysteries of their physical environment, it was indeed necessary to employ a kind of intellectual screen to guard against this, a screen that would effectively ensure that unsubstantiated conclusions could not be allowed to interfere with the rigorous pursuit of factual information. Therefore, they came up with a set of rules by which the physical world could be examined, which allowed only those conclusions which were proven beyond all reasonable doubt to be valid and correct. This set of rules was to be known as "The Scientific Method".

Now scientific method, as we all know, became what could be described as a "big success". It was the key to that major breakthrough in human understanding which allowed us to finally get a grip on the issue of living comfortably in our physical environment. It was not really anything more than a little check list used by researchers, to remind themselves to stick to the principles of logic and reason. It was just some rules to follow in order to ensure that they had not overused their imaginations, to ensure that they had not used faith in a situation when faith was not appropriate - but it worked. It worked so well that it was able to bring us "the wonders of science".

However, something rather curious has sprung from this progression of events. This thing called "Science" has come along and put on a rather impressive show for us. So spectacular has been it's performance, in fact, that we have been dazzled into abandoning our adherence to its own logical principles when examining the role of science itself. If we look around at the reverence with which our society regards scientific accomplishment, it becomes obvious that science, that great guardian of logic, has in fact stolen our hearts. We have been so moved by the performance that it has propelled us on that large irrational leap beyond the range of the logical mind in to the land of faith.

Our respect for science has launched us into that very place of non-logic that science was originally created to protect us from. If you can imagine anything so paradoxical, we have developed: faith in science. We have developed faith in that very thing that found its success by being the antithesis of faith.

We regard scientific potential with total blind devotion. We have seen science come up with some important answers for us in the past so we wait trustingly expecting that it will be the source of our answers in the future. In the past it has improved the productivity of our agriculture, so where do we look for future improvements in agriculture? To science. In the past it has provided major improvements in our ability to communicate with one another, so we habitually assume that to further improve our communications we must look to science. Science has done a great deal toward improving our housing, so, for further improvements in housing we look to science. The list of what we expect science will do for us goes on and on.

Of major concern to us is the matter of healing. Here again science has given us some important help. The biomedical view of our bodies has provided us with a framework upon which some great life saving technological breakthroughs have been built. The state of our health today, from many perspectives, has clearly benefitted from what science has provided us, so here again the mainstream of our thinking allocates the role of further improving our health according to our faith in science.

But, it is simply not scientific to entertain such expectations, because it is not scientific to habitually look anywhere, including looking to science itself. Nor is it rational to habitually look to our rational minds. To do so, in fact, is merely narrow minded thinking. The scientific approach to the question: "Where should we look?", is not: "Where we always look, of course". The scientific approach to looking for the next answer to any question involves looking to an extent no less than the full range of our perception.

It is quite possible, in fact, that the answers to many of the major questions currently faced by humanity may well spring, not from our scientific analytical selves at all, but rather from the intuitive, sensitive and spiritual sides. The scientific approach to finding new answers may well involve looking beyond what we now view as scientific. The rational decision may well be to go beyond pure rationality of mind.

An incredible time indeed: incredible not only in comparison to the world we might remember of a few decades ago but particularly incredible beside the thousands of generations of man which preceded us - the generations of man whose scope included little more than chasing wild animals through the jungle with a stone-tipped spear, the generations of man whose scope included little more than scraping in the earth with crude gardening instruments. In fact our time is a most richly unique time, beside that of all generations of man which precede us, no member of which had available to him or here that which is potentially available to any member of the present generation.

And yet to say that we live in an incredible time is by no means to suggest that we live in an easy one. In fact this period of history to which we have fallen heir is for some of us a most difficult time and for all of us a most dangerous one. The old values by which we lived for many generations in relative stability are now seeming no longer to apply, while the new values by which we might take a new position in a new world are yet to be clearly established. It is a time of confusion, because many of the objectives pursued by the countless past generations of humanity are no longer viable. The value system, however, the social momentum which once supported the pursuit of these objectives, is still very much with us, so that this social momentum is now doing no more than fracturing our views as to what is worthwhile, as if they are being splattered against a stone wall and sent madly off in miscellaneous-directed tangents.

If we look again at our world, this time looking past the impressive machinery and seemingly ultra-efficient productions systems, we can see that a great part of the basis of our social structure is falling to ruin. The industrial system, which seemed at one time as though it might be our deliverance from the suffering of material deprivation, is now showing a second, very ugly face, grinding on through those so finite supplies of natural resources and at the same time choking our environment with deadly pollutants.

Then, as we squander the wealth of our residual resources, and the wealth that is the life-supporting cleanliness of our home the earth, we are losing as well on the other end of the production chain, because the quality standards of the goods that we are receiving from the industrial system in return for subjecting our earth to this depleting and polluting are falling to lower and lower levels. You can hardly stop for lunch and expect a plateful of anything more than some kind of synthetic mock-up, which for so called "economic" reasons, has been laced with questionable chemicals designed to have made it either grow faster, look more marketable or stay longer in the warehouse. You can hardly even buy a bottle of beer that is worth drinking because the natural brewing process that would make it aesthetically and nutritionally fit for human consumption would take somebody an extra few weeks and yet huge proportions of the labor force are what they call"unemployed".

Now if we have unemployment, it implies that we have surplus resources, surplus labor resources. We have among us people who have nothing to do with their time and yet when there is a job to be done there seems to be nobody around to do it. Of all those people who can not find a job, there seems to be very few who feel inclined to offer us the extra time which would be required in order to make us an unpolluted bottle of beer. There is no motivation. Unemployment does nothing more than free a large proportion of the population to sit around and become dissatisfied with their lives - if we are relatively fortunate, that is. If we are not so fortunate, then unemployment frees that large proportion of the population to express their frustration in such things as drug abuse, crime and violence. Labor is frustrated; the people whom industry calls "labor" are frustrated. Even for those who retain their jobs there is often little reason to become serious about whatever is to be done. Money used to work, but money is becoming very cheap. Employers who would like to increase motivation might try to do so by increasing wage rates. This approach has worked in the past so they try it and hope, but it does not work. Instead it causes inflation and makes money even cheaper.

But what can we do? What can we do in the face of a economic and social system that goes recklessly about its business with little regard for the people it was designed to serve? What we could perhaps do is to try and avoid the question another little bit longer. We could tell ourselves that the whole thing is the problem of some other individuals, or groups of individuals, who have somehow managed to wrest from our grip the control of our collective destiny. There is quite a reasonable looking list of scapegoats from which to select: wealthy people, people in power, any racial or ethnic group that might come to mind. We could easily have another purge, revolution or war against anyone and imagine ourselves to be really getting at the problem. Then again we could become what is sometimes called "philosophical", and while we are in this mode we could attempt an only slightly more insightful avoidance of the issue by blaming whatever gods may have burdened us with such elements of human frailty as: "greed", "laziness" or "lust for power". Yes, we might be able to leave ourselves innocently deluded another little bit longer. However, the inevitable eventuality of such an attitude is that some of that very efficient technology which we have designed for the purpose of making our lives easier and better is going to deliver us with a very efficient crunch. We could easily wipe ourselves out.

We can no longer hope to survive while applying the power of contemporary technology to the archaic attitudes and social systems of another era. It was alright, for example, to dig up the earth indiscriminately when it was only with a hand shovel. Even in the hands of an operator who was totally devoid of any kind of environmental sensitivity, there was not a great deal of harm that could be done one shovelful at a time. Give the same operator an eight thousand yard per hour excavating machine, however, and the landscape begins to look a little more vulnerable. It was alright to be throwing garbage around when the worst we had was a few table scraps and the worst consequences we faced was the bacterial disease they supported. To be sure bacterial disease was not a pleasant prospect, but in comparison to the prospect of having to deal with somebody's discarded nuclear waste, or with the prospect of the continental water supply being contaminated by some insidious man-designed chemical poison with a disintegration period of twenty five thousand years - somehow bacteria do not look quite so bad. It was alright to be attacking one another from time to time, killing one another with swords or guns. Of course, nobody looked forward to being the recipient of such treatment, but at least it was possible for humanity to come through it as a group. In comparison to the probable total annihilation that would result from a global exchange of nuclear weapons, such "conventional" aggression would seem like children playing.

We are just too powerful to survive at out present level of stupidity. If we, together with the systems we have created for ourselves, are to remain as we are, retaining the same attitudes to our environment, to one another and to ourselves, we will not make it. We ponder the dinosaurs and how they lasted only seventy five million years, and with a kind of pompous psuedo-superiority we sometimes blame their passing on their lack of intelligence. Who would be around to ponder humanity lasting only its few thousand years, and blame its passing on our surplus intelligence. We have ourselves in a corner because our superior brain power seems limited to the superior capacity to manipulate the physical world, without the constraint of the sensitivity to do so wisely. We could very easily manipulate our rich life-giving earth into just another desert somewhere in the cosmos.

But what can we do? We must first of all gather the courage to stand back from ourselves far enough to see ourselves as we are; to see ourselves as from the point of view of somebody outside of the petty conquests of this set of myopic self interest which seem to have become so fundamentally entwined with the human race. We must stand back from ourselves far enough so that we are able to see only mankind in its entirety, and then from the aloofness of this momentary detachment, we must realize that if man creates a threat to mankind, then it is in fact our problem. We must stand back from ourselves far enough to see the values by which we live, as they fit into the context of life on earth, and we must examine this value system to determine whether it is an appropriate one for the world in which we now live.

Sometimes, however, some of us lose touch with the part of ourselves that likes to feel good, and we get stuck somewhere off to the side of that healthy and happy balance. Then we get in the opposite cycle where we feel bad because we are in poor health and we are in poor health because we feel bad. It is during those times that we need to know how to break that cycle by consciously seeking out reasons to laugh ourselves back to health.

There is more to laughter than the feeling good that goes along with it, however. It seems that the physcial act of giving your body that big noisy shake actually has some therapeutic effect on its own.

Those of us who use computers are familiar with a command called "re-boot". This is a procedure we might use when a program we are working on is stuck in some insoluble confusion, and there is no way out but starting over from the beginning. It is a "clear everything out and start over" command.

In a way that is what happens to us when we laugh. The laughing clears out all the thoughts that we have had running through our heads, and starts us over again from our basic operating systems. In fact if you look at the things that make us laugh, they closely resemble the situation faced by the frustrated programmer. A joke is really just a little drama that imposes an insoluble paradox upon one's intellect. A line of thinking suddenly appears to be not what we expected it was, and our minds have no recourse but to temporarily throw away the whole progression of thoughts by means of our physiological "re-boot" command. We laugh.

It happens that while we are getting rid of the paradox that came with the joke, we also get rid of some of the other "garbage programs" that we have been loading in during the course of our day, some programs that might be dedicated to worrying about things that worrying does not help. Try and laugh and worry at the same time - it simply can not be done.

Part of us, the very practical side of ourselves uses laughter as an escape mechanism to save us from situatuions our mind can not otherwise deal with. When we laugh, even when we are laughing at someone else's misery, it is from the point of view of oursleves at our most basic level, just another paradox to be dispensed with by the anatomical procedure that empties our minds.

It happens that getting rid of all those worry programs feels good, however, so good that the laughter becomes more than just a practical matter of re-programming; it becomes an end in it self. At that point we find ourselves actively seeking situations that demand of our minds to let go. We find our selves seeking out that kind of dramatic incongruity called humour, and we let it empty our minds and make us feel happy and healthy.

When we are ill, an important part of the illnessis is the "I'm sick" programs that we keep running through our minds, constantly reminding us of whatever predicament we are seeing ourselves as having fallen into - thereby amplifying the problem. If in this situation we can seek out reasons to laugh, it gives our minds a break, sometimes just the break it needs to come up with some brand new programs - some brand new programs that say: "I'm healthy!".