Articles

Reference:
Meares Ainslie, Atavistic regression as a factor in the remission of cancer, Medical Journal of Australia, July 23, 1977.

It is suggested that the atavistic regression of the mind in intensive meditation is accompanied by a similar physiological regression and that this may involve the immune system and so influence the patient's defenses against cancer.

Last year I reported a case of regression of advanced cancer after intensive meditation.1 It is now 18 months since I first saw the patient. She is well, strong, free of pain, has gained 25 lb in weight and leads a very active life. I now wish to discuss some philosophical, psychological and physiological processes which, it would seem, not only explain her recovery, hut would also explain the very rare, but nevertheless well authenticated spontaneous remissions of cancer.

When something has gone wrong, it cannot come right on the foundations of the faulty state of affairs. First, there must be a going back to that state of affairs which obtained before it went wrong. Sometimes the going back can be achieved by process of mind rather than in a purely physical sense. But the base truth remains that we cannot proceed to a better state by any direct forward move from the faulty state in which we now find ourselves.

The growth of cancer is associated with a relative failure of the patient's immune system The immune reaction has gone wrong. Before it can come right there must first be a going back to the state of affairs which obtained before it went wrong. We have within our hody innumerable self-righting systems. On this basis, if the faulty immune reaction of the cancer patient could be led hack to the state of affairs before the faulty reaction developed, there would seem to be a good chance of an effective normal reaction becoming reestablished through the self-righting system of the body.

Hypnosis and meditation are slightly different manifestations of the same basic process. I have shown that atavistic regression is the basic mechanism in hypnosis.2 A similar regression to a simpler and more primitive mode of mental functioning occurs in meditation.

In meditation the atavistic regression of mental functioning is clearly demonstrable. But there is also evidence of an accompanying physiological regression. For instance. I like to meditate at night on the balcony of the high-rise building where I live. In front of me arc some pedestrian traffic lights which seldom change. and from my position I can see both the red and the green lights. As my meditation becomes more profound, the lights lose their colour. I see neither red nor green. but simply a blob of light. In other words, the physiology of my visual apparatus has regressed to a more primitive mode of functioning which obtained before we evolved the more recently acquired ability of colour vision. The increase in alpha and theta waves in the electroencephalogram in meditation is also probably a regressive phenomenon. From these observations it would seem likely that a degree of general physiological regression follows the regression of mental functioning. If this is so, it may well be that the immune system participates in the general physiological regression.

Added to the general regression there is another important mechanism. Anxiety increases cortisone production, and cortisone has an inhibiting effect on our immune reactions. Meditation reduces anxiety. so this in itself should have some beneficial physiological effect on cancer growth.

I now wish to apply these principles to the pattern of response observed in the patient to whom I referred in the opening paragraph. Just as there are different forms of hypnosis irrespective of depth, there are also different forms of meditation. The patient was led into long periods of very intense meditation which differs in quality from both classical meditation and the modern variants such as transcendental meditation. The main difference concerns its extreme simplicity, in which the patient was brought to experience little more than her being.

The significant episode in the patients recovery is that after the publication oh the report, she had a serious relapse. I went overseas for 3½ weeks and the patient was left to continue her meditation unaided. She soon relapsed. Herr breast became hard again and the skin over it became tense and discoloured. Her physical condition had clearly deteriorated. On my return. I inquired in some detail about the way she had been meditating.

It gradually became clear that she had changed the pattern of her meditation. With her initial success she had become very confident. Her recovery was hailed as a kind of miracle. Her photograph was in the papers. She gave television and radio interviews and was invited to give talks on how she "beat" cancer. In this burst of confidence, she departed from the extreme simplicity of the meditation she had been taught She improved upon it. She would tell her cancer to get better. She would will it to get better. "I will make you get better." And of her own initiative she came upon the way of visualizing her cancer getting better. In this form of meditation there was clearly little atavistic regression. However. when she returned to the extreme simplicity of the meditation in which she was originally instructed, her breast softened again, she put on weight. and strength returned. She has continued well for the nine months since this episode. From this it would seem that the atavistic regression, the going back to a simple and more primitive pattern of functioning was an essential factor in the patient's recovery.

It would seem that these same principles are applicable to the rare spontaneous remissions of cancer. People arc reluctant to discuss the matter of personal prayer, but I have learned over the years that many patients have an unexpectedly active experience of prayer. As with hypnosis and meditation, there are various qualitative differences in prayer irrespective of the ideational content. In prayers of worship and in prayers of asking, the mind remains alert and there is little regression. However, those who pray by experiencing God, or that aspect of God which is within themselves, lose their alertness and cease to function critically. Their mind is functioning at a simpler level which is equivalent to the atavistic regression in some forms of hypnosis and meditation. There is a kind of unity about it all, and such people may be relieved through their prayer, through their experience of God, through the natural order of things, all of which may be different manifestations of the same basic process.

References
1- Meares, A., Regression of cancer after intensive meditation, Med. J. Aust., 1976, 2: 184.
2- Meares, A., The atavistic theory of hypnosis, Med. J. Aust., 1962, 1: 711.