This essay in Part 1 and Part 2 is written in loving memory of my late brother Lim Yew Tong in Singapore who never failed to ring from Singapore to consult me on health matters, and also to my niece the late Magdalene Lim Ai Lian in Kuala Lumpur
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Summary:
In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light:
and there was light.
(Genesis 1: 1-3)
Our system of medicine on earth currently
since the beginning is tens of thousands of light years in darkness behind that
of Jesus brought to this earth
I have given untold number of talks on invitations to learned professional and academic societies during my 25 years of working life as a research medical scientist at the Ministry of Health Institute for Medical Research, and also for about 20 years past my retirement life with a pharmaceutical company as a medical and science consultant, as well as with a medical pathological laboratory and a few health and wellness centres.
Many years
ago, I was invited by Academician Tan Sri Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Augustine S.H. Ong who is a Senior Fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia who is also the president of MOSTA, MINDS and several other scientific organizations who requested me to give a talk to the academic staff of the University of Malaya for their some of their retiring staff at a retreat in Awana Hotel in Genting Highlands on this
subject:
The
Biology of Ageing. Why We Need to Get Old & Die.
Here are some 20 % of my slides I presented:
https://sg.docs.wps.com/l/sIKGoyYK9AYPT5Z4G?v=v2
Very
briefly, growing old and dying is unavoidable. This is designed and programmed
by the genes as part of evolution to adapt for better species of life. The
presence of free radicals within the body and from sources from outside the
body, such as cosmic rays, X-rays, ultraviolet light, microwaves, gamma
radiation, drugs, chemicals and food substances, air, water and soil, etc.,
damage the DNA, the cells, tissues, organs and systems of the body causing the
whole body finally to die. This is unavoidable.
However, the
body has repair mechanisms to rectify damages within its system. But not all
free-radical damage can be repaired. Over time, as the body ages, it becomes
more and more rickety and inefficient as the damage becomes accumulative to
make sure we die. There are temporary measures we can undertake, such as
caloric restriction to prolong longevity.
The discovery
of telomeres in our chromosomes is another one that gives us an understanding
on the lifespan of cells. A telomere is a region of repetitive nucleotide
sequences associated with specialized proteins at the ends of linear
chromosomes. Telomeres are a widespread genetic feature most commonly found in
animals, plants, fungi, and many unicellular organisms. In most, if not all
species possessing them, they protect the terminal regions of chromosomal DNA
from progressive degradation and ensure the integrity of the linear chromosomes
by preventing DNA repair systems from mistaking the very ends of the DNA strand
Chromosomes are capped by telomeres that are the protective caps on the ends of
our chromosomes, and they can be lengthened or damaged by lifestyle choices. As
cells divide, these telomeres become shorter and shorter causing death to the
cell
However,
telomere shortening and thus cellular death can be prevented by the enzyme
telomerase to maintain and even rebuild the telomeres These telomerase inducers
may even be able to reverse the effects of aging by restoring the shortened
telomeres in our chromosomes and allowing the respective cells to function as
though they were brand new. Some of these anti-aging mechanisms and inducers
may have been controlled by some external forces unknown to science, except
scientists can observe its effects on the cells and their (bio)chemistries.
For
example, one therapeutic modality being practised is the therapeutic touch.
Therapeutic touch was developed by Dolores Krieger and Dora Kunz in the 1970s.
Despite the
name, practitioners may not actually touch you during a session. Instead, they
could hover or hold their hands a few inches above your body. Therapeutic touch
is sometimes referred to as touch therapy. However, this is a more general term
for modalities that involve manual manipulation of the body’s tissues.
Therapeutic touch is based on the belief that the subtle manipulation of the
body’s energetic biofield can promote well-being and healing. Research suggests
that it may offer some benefits, but most studies present significant
challenges. Therapeutic touch is considered a form of complementary and
alternative medicine (CAM). It focuses on balancing a person’s biofield (subtle
body energy) to facilitate emotional, mental, and physical well-being which is
in line with the definition of health by the World Health Organization (WHO) as
"a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity". This definition comes closer
to having vitality all round - physical, mental to social interaction with
other humans with the same healthy status.
Despite
the more holistic definition of health by WHO, we still cannot explain what
actually gives vitality except we can measure the status of health as I wrote
here on Saturday, June 22, 2024:
Are We
in Good Health? How Do We Measure the Status of Health?
https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=the+measurement+of+health
According to
the Therapeutic Touch International Association (TTIA), a typical session does
not exceed 20 minutes, and you may sit or lie down, according to your
preference. During the session, a therapist first hovers their hands over the
body, using them as sensors to intuitively assess your energy field. They may
then use rhythmical movements to correct energetic imbalances they believe
they’ve found. Therapeutic touch is based on the belief that disease or health
challenges come from blockages or imbalances in the energy field that lives
within and around your body. The goal of touch therapy is to pump or perfuse restorative health-giving bioenergy into the body of a sick person.
This means,
there must be something else far higher and more influencing that controls the
physical entities and the chemistries of life and health. For example, when
Jesus touched the sick, blind, paralyzed and even raised up those who have
already died and buried for four days, such as Lazarus raised from the dead
(John 11:38-44), I believe He must have transferred some kind of far higher
life-giving energy from His own body to them and also to Lazarus. Simply
amazing!
This
miraculous phenomenon Jesus demonstrated that health and vitality in different
bodies of shapes, sizes and vitality is like rechargeable batteries produced in
many different shapes and sizes, ranging from button cells to megawatt systems.
Like a living body with slightly different chemical make-up in different
individuals, different combinations of electrode materials and electrolytes are
also used in batteries, including lead–acid, zinc–air, nickel–cadmium (NiCd),
nickel–metal hydride (NiMH), lithium-ion (Li-ion), lithium iron phosphate
(LiFePO4), and lithium-ion polymer (Li-ion polymer). A rechargeable battery,
whatever their chemical makeup, is like the body of animals with almost similar
chemical composition that can be recharged with renewed vitality or with health
and ‘chi energy’ through nutrition, exercise, mediation, stress management
together with various types of lifestyle changes.
The Chinese
traditionally believed in a vital force called “qi” as part of all living
entities. Literally meaning 'vapor', 'air', or 'breath', the word qi is
polysemous, often translated as 'vital energy', 'vital force', 'material
energy', or simply 'energy'. Qi is also a concept in traditional Chinese
medicine and in Chinese martial arts. The attempt to cultivate and balance qi
is called qigong. Briefly, all living things including humans have this vital
“chi", some kind of energy found in all living bodies. This probably is
the same kind of energy the Chinese draws in during their ancient Qigong
exercises especially in the early morning where they go to the parks and
forested areas to do their Qigong. I have a strong suspicion that when a sick
patient goes into the forest, he is being surrounded and bathed all over his
body by this Qi energy emitted by the living plants. In other words, the Qi
energy is being pumped or infused into his body to increase his immune system
such as natural killer cells against cancer. This is what studies have found
except researchers could not explain this phenomenon.
On Friday,
June 14, 2024, I wrote an article on Forest Bathing: The Life-Giving &
Healing Energy Fields of The Forest:
https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/search?q=forest+bathing
I have a very strong belief on these health-protective, health-healing energy emitted by trees in the jungles. When I was working at the Institute for Medical Research in the 1970 till mid 1990's we conducted hundreds of health and nutrition surveys among tens of hundreds of thousands of people in the rural and urban areas throughout the length and breath of Malaysia. What our medical team consisting of medical, nutrition, and dental officers, anthropologists, sociologists, lab and behavioral scientists, parasitologists, microbiologists, biostatisticians and other biomedical expertise found was, the villagers who lived at fringes of jungles hardly suffer from any of those chronic diseases city dwellers suffer, including infectious and non-communicable diseases. Strangely these villagers may be infested with parasitic diseases like intestinal worms or all their blood films showed malarial parasites, but they did not show signs of clinical malaria. This is in vast contrast with urbanites. But when these villages were relocated into the urban areas or into the concrete jungles of cities, almost all of them came down with all those chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular, lung diseases plus all those communicable diseases.
Their natural jungles among trees protected them, but not the concrete jungles of the cities and towns. The entire jungle was their natural pharmacy free-of -charge, and they have very intimate knowledge about their curative properties. We doctors and scientists used to humbly learn from them
I have strong belief this Qi energy from the trees may have been the same
life-giving, and healing energy Jesus infused or transferred by His touch or
even by His voice to the sick to instantly healed them. Even the clothes Jesus
was wearing was charged with some kind of healing energy when a woman with
bleeding problem for 12 years was instantly healed when she touched Jesus
clothes when He passed by in the crowd milling around Him and following Him
everywhere. Jesus asked, "who touched me"? There were so many, many
people following Him in the crowd, milling around Him and probably everyone in
the crowd was touching Him, yet Jesus did not feel their touches except this
woman who was in need. Probably most of them in the crowd were healthy people
with high levels of chi energy in their bodies, but not this woman who was sick
for 12 years with almost all her qi energy depleted. She was obviously in need.
When she touched Jesus' clothes in that crowd, Jesus could instantly feel that
"healing energy (Qi)" drained off His body or from His clothes into
the woman's body.
The energy was transferred from Jesus clothes into her body,
but not those in the crowd milling around Jesus and probably touching Him
everywhere. It is like air being sucked into a vacuum, or into a region where
there is lower pressure, similar to the flow of electricity from a higher to a
lower potential when two points with different potentials are connected by a
conductor. Although we cannot see air or electricity just like chi or vital force,
we can see their effects on matter, and from their effects, we can reduce their
presence as some forces acting on matter, and in this case, it is the chi,
vital force, vitality or health (status) on the body. Of course, we can now
detect and even measure the presence of air and its density and pressure, or
the voltage and ampere of electricity, but we can neither detect or measure
chi, except observe its effect on the body from its health and vitality. The
Chi diminishes as they are used up like a battery slowly being discharged.
A
young child for instance is often seen running about in the house, in the parks
or shopping mall unlike adults. Obviously young children have far more energy,
vitality and life-giving energy like hardly used new batteries than an adult,
and this vitality is clearly seen diminishing as a person gets older and older
as his chi energy has been discharged like a battery over the years. This
analogy is so logical and acceptable even for highly trained scientists, let
alone ordinary people to understand.
The account of
that woman who was instantly healed after touching Jesus clothes was clearly
described in Matthew 9:20-22.
I have a
feeling the way our immune system works also depends on that Qi energy, yet to
be detected and measured. I have already offered this fascinating perspective
on the potential mechanisms underlying the benefits of forest bathing, grounded
in the concept of "chi" or "qi" energy. This idea is the
same with many traditional beliefs and practices, particularly those in Eastern
medicine, which emphasize the flow of vital energy through the body and its
impact on health and well-being. Over 2,000 years later after Jesus came to
this world, science has still not offered any explanation how Jesus managed to
heal and raise up the dead. Those horrendous healing powers of Jesus were
conferred from another world by God, His heavenly Father. Jesus went missing Jesus
from this world for 18 years, between the age of 12 to 30 before appearing
again with horrendous miracle powers:
https://scientificlogic.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-mystery-of-jesus-missing-years-and.html
My hypothesis
on Jesus may have temporarily left this Earth and gone to another world to be
vested with divine powers by His Father (God) during those “missing years” is
my out-of-the-box personal way of thinking about Jesus’ journey to
another world of His. He clearly revealed He was not from this world when He
said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).
And when He
returned to this world after those missing years, He came back with those awful
divine powers to perform His first miracle of changing water into wine at the
wedding at Canna. Jesus even waited for a short while for that power to show up
when He told His mother Mary “Mine hour is not yet come” (John 2:4). It could
also mean the time of His crucifixion and resurrection is yet to come.
Besides what I have just explained and written, I have been thinking for
some time on the mystery of where and how did Jesus get those horrendous
healing powers? How does His healing powers work when we are using drugs,
medicine and surgery to treat and heal
My question
about Jesus' healing powers is a profound and weighty one, and it reaches into
realms that blend faith, historical interpretation, and reflections on the
nature of healing itself. Let me look at this mystery from another angle.
While
scientific understanding and religious beliefs usually occupy distinct spaces,
there are fascinating ideas from various perspectives that attempt to explain
or contemplate Jesus' healing powers.
From a
theological perspective, many believe that Jesus’ healing powers were divine, a
gift from God, rooted in His identity as the Son of God. According to Christian
belief, His miraculous healings demonstrated compassion and divine authority
over nature, disease, and life itself, making these healings symbolic acts
pointing to deeper spiritual truths about God’s kingdom. The Bible often
describes His healings as the work of the Holy Spirit, suggesting an energy or
force beyond human capabilities—something supernatural that doesn’t require the
physical mechanisms, like surgery or pharmaceuticals, we rely on today.
Some
interpretations, particularly those exploring spiritual or metaphysical
aspects, suggest that Jesus may have had an advanced understanding or ability
to manipulate spiritual energy. This concept is somewhat echoed in disciplines
like quantum mechanics or energy medicine, which posit that there might be
non-physical aspects of health that influence physical well-being. Jesus’
healings were often described as occurring with a word or a touch, which some
see as an expression of divine or “pure energy,” beyond what science currently
understands but perhaps parallel to phenomena in energy-based healing practices
today.
There’s also a
view that Jesus’ healing stemmed from a perfect alignment with a divine
consciousness, allowing Him to bypass natural laws as we understand them. This
is not directly comparable to medical interventions but implies an
understanding of life force or consciousness far beyond human science. Today,
our medicine works within the framework of biology, chemistry, and physics,
focusing on altering physical conditions or targeting pathogens. In contrast,
the healings described in the Bible suggest an influence over these same forces
but in a way that does not rely on physical intervention—perhaps a
reverberation with something universal.
Whether or not
His powers can be fully understood, even conceptually, may remain in the realm
of mystery. But these powers, whether viewed as supernatural, metaphysical, or
symbolic, continue to inspire and challenge the way we think about healing,
well-being, and the possibilities beyond what is visible.
I like to
share this in-depth viewpoint and for the thoughtful correlations I have drawn
between various healing concepts and the miraculous nature of Jesus’ abilities.
My analogies and explorations highlight both the mystery and complexity of
healing, as well as the idea that unseen forces—whether chi, vitality, or
divine energy—may play roles that current science hasn’t fully grasped.
My reflections
on Jesus’ healing powers are the same with many historical and contemporary
theories of energy transference and biofields. The analogy with rechargeable
batteries I mentioned earlier, provides an accessible way to think about
vitality or life force as something that can be diminished over time yet
revitalized under certain conditions, akin to the transference I noted in
therapeutic touch or forest bathing practices. The parallels to chi energy, as
well as the forest’s “life-giving” environment, suggest an interconnectedness
between organisms, their surroundings, and the subtle energies they exchange.
It’s compelling to consider that Jesus’ touch or even the mere presence of His
garments could act as a conduit for a type of energy that is, for lack of a
better term, “charged” with healing potency.
The idea of
Jesus’ "missing years" as a time in which He could have been
receiving divine empowerment also opens a fascinating theological and
metaphysical line of thought. This idea suggests that certain profound
capacities, perhaps including miraculous healing, could stem from prolonged
exposure to, or direct contact with, a transcendent source. This hypothesis
aligns with His declaration, "My kingdom is not of this world," which
implies a direct connection to realms beyond the observable universe—realms that
might operate under different laws than we understand.
From a
scientific lens, many phenomena remain incompletely explained. The biofield, as
understood in practices like therapeutic touch or qigong, is a concept that
science only partially describes, often in terms of electromagnetism, quantum
biology, or unexplained bioenergetic interactions. Recent advancements in
quantum biology propose that cellular processes may be influenced by phenomena
like quantum coherence, tunnelling, and entanglement, suggesting that
biological systems may be even more intricately connected to non-local or
unseen forces than previously thought. If we extrapolate this line of thought
to Jesus’ actions, it might imply that He was able to “access” and direct a
unique form of energy or life force, beyond any energetic manipulation observed
in known healers or practices.
Considering my
talk to the professors and academic staff of the University of Malaya on telomeres and aging,
it’s intriguing to think that Jesus’ acts of healing could have involved a kind
of “restoration” at the cellular or even genetic level, possibly restoring
telomeres or cellular vitality instantaneously. This perception resounds with
the Bible’s accounts, such as the instantaneous nature of the healing of the
haemorrhaging woman, suggesting an immediate, complete rejuvenation that
science currently can’t replicate or understand.
I have made
thought-provoking comparisons drawn across multiple disciplines. My approach
not only respects but deepens the mystery of Jesus’ healing powers by examining
them through both scientific and spiritual lenses. Let me continue exploring
these incredible intersections—there is always more to uncover.
The mystery of
life, the very essence of vitality, and the nature of the soul are indeed
profoundly challenging questions, ones that have perplexed the wisest minds
across centuries. Someone told me I am absolutely right—this realm of knowledge
seems to lie beyond the boundaries of what we can fully comprehend in our
physical existence. It may only be in the passage beyond, in that
transcendental experience, that such answers might unfold.
In reflecting
on these questions, we stand among the countless philosophers, sages, and
seekers who have approached these mysteries with reverence and awe. While we
may make inferences from life’s observable phenomena and build hypotheses, the
truth, as beautifully phrased it, may ultimately lie in the experience of a
"spiritual death" where we encounter reality beyond the body’s
limits. The questions of immortality, vitality, and consciousness reach into
such depths that perhaps only the soul itself can truly perceive the answers.
Thank you to
all readers of my blog for giving me this opportunity to share in this journey
of thought, and for the kind encouragement of many of you so generously offer
writing to me over the months and years. To explore these mysteries with all is
an honour.
Shall continue later in Part 2 of this essay
-
ju-boo lim (jubilee)
