Dr. Otumdi Omekara, an Oregon based physician, presents a new book, Evidence- Based Spirituality: A New Frontier of Science, which explores the findings in hitherto unknown or unexplored territories in medical science. The findings are revealing, urging a meeting point between science, religion and philosophy in unravelling the intricate challenges in healing, and as a precursor to another book: Exercising Spiritual Authority in Healthcare.
NDUKA NWOSU reviews the excerpts:
Evidence-Based Spirituality: A New Frontier of Science, is a 444 page compendium challenging and alerting scholars of new ideas and findings that will take civilisation via the field of medicine, to the next level. The literature review includes works on the evolution of scientific thoughts from classical physics to quantum mechanics and their relative application to medicine in the treatment and eradication of diseases.
Spirituality by definition, is the pursuit of personal meaning, purpose and connection to something larger than oneself, the universal essence or God Almighty. It is considered personal in meaning as has been stressed in the book and is given interpretation in diverse dimensions whether in religion, philosophy, science, and by whatever your belief system allows you.
The relationship between science, and spirituality and its relative application through investigation and new discoveries in medicine, summarises the plank of the book.
The practicality of these postulations begins with a demonstrable discourse on electromagnetic fields for both animate and inanimate matter. Spiritual exercises are designed to quicken the footsteps of the Christian soldier and help him combat the negative forces on his way whether as illness or some other obstacle hindering his progress. Spiritual exercises connect with the human electromagnetic field, the powerful human aura. This brings us to the reference to glands as the invisible guardians of man. Students of physiology, psychology and all psycho-related disciplines know this. Christians who pray from the crown (pituitary gland) of their heads to the soles ( adrenal glands) of their feet with their anointing oil representing the blood of Jesus, a case of mind over matter, will agree the idea is to create a convergence, a meeting point for the spiritual transformation, upliftment and encapsulation of the subject (the individual or prayer warrior) by a strengthened electromagnetic field that manifests itself as the human aura. This was always noticeable in the Master Jesus who painters such as Michelangelo surrounded his image with the glowing, visible presence of his spiritual aura, that followed him to heaven when lifted up (anti-gravity), which Christian iconography and art history recognise as a spiritual halo, the nimbus of Moses and the Israelites, which also descended on the Temple of Solomon as the glory of God, when completed.
Omekara did not state the above line of thoughts explicitly in the book but every discerning student of nature knows how important a strong or weak electromagnetic field is in healing the sick. Its awakening comes with regular spiritual exercises. Hippocrates did not deal with this aspect of medicine though and which the book explores.
This Amazon publication which is available as soft and hard copies, has gone ahead to enrich the libraries of medical schoos. It is a must read for students of medicine and surgery, who are keen on research and the advancement of medicine for posterity.
What the author Dr. Otumdi Omekara has done and is doing, is to create a meeting point between the intangible and challenging values of spirituality and the objective, measurable, quantum physics of science. The synthesis in medicine, in this context, will lead to a series of new methods of application in the healing of human ailments and maladies. It is already doing so, the book reveals, as more is being expected.
The spiritual state is also “being reframed in quantum terms,” we are told. He warns that the convergence of spirituality and science does not imply all spiritual claims are valid or that science must adopt mystical language entangled with the broader field of reality. A new posture of humility on both sides is needed. The exciting thing in this book is how some of the long held phenomena, superstition and the supernatural, for example, are being studied as a subject that science and some of its dedicated research scholars believe constitute a frontier that will add to the growth of human existence.
Again, how will the great Hippocrates of Kos (c 460 -370 BC), the Greek physician of the classical period and the founding father of clinical medicine and surgery feel regarding the surging research into territories he least anticipated would be investigated, were he to wake up from the dead? That is considering the blueprint he laid down, that medicine is a rational, empirical, science, anchored on observation, separated from superstition, the supernatural, and the magical? He further stated that illness or disease is the product of environmental factors, diet and lifestyle, not a punishment from God. While adhering to the basic ethics of Hippocrates, his followers have long researched and keep researching as with results enriching the field of medicine as we can see in Evidence-Based Spirituality: A New Frontier of Science.
Hermestus Trismegistus: founder of Hermeticism, which blended astrology, alchemy and esoteric philosophy with emphasis that the heavens complement the earth or as above, so below, while imbibing the core values of Hippocrates, goes the extra mile to do what the Father of Medicine did not do by understudying astrology, the spiritual values in religion and philosophy and their application in healing.
Anyway a throwback to ancient Egypt reveals the long standing leaning of medicine and healing to mythology and religious belief systems. Aesculapius was the ancient god (after death) and father of medicine who gave the profession a snake for its image. Medicine had always belonged to the mystical and the mysteries of human existence as can be seen in the snake. Aesculapius was said to have had his power of raising the dead curbed by the god Zeus who killed him for violating the natural order. What was Aesculapius’ loss was the gain of Jesus, the Lord and Saviour of mankind, whose product-the power of life over death, has now become the new normal under Him, in the natural order of things. Unfortunately for the Jews, this product was ubelievably astounding, healing the sick and raising the dead, they could do nothing but rain false accusation at him and finally framing him for the gallows, the stake. The master of all healers and the owner of life and death was in-charge. This is where Evidence-Based Spirituality: A New Frontier of Science which hinges itself along with its rebirth-Exercising Spiritual Authority in Healthcare, is properly birthed.
Whereas Western civilisation has long been deduced as the product of the mystical and spiritual practices of mystery schools of the past, shamanism inclusive; Parmenides and Empedocles were said to have received their teachings through shamanic, mystical travels to the Underworld where the Goddess Persephone taught them and revealed the secret wisdom in healing. Omekara, who represents the modern traveller to the world of the divine, explores the wider practice of meditation, and prayer, all designed to access divine revelation capable of among other things, help to heal the sick.
These practitioners of shamanism were students of Pythagoreanism which was all about accessing the source of truth and wisdom, the Divine. In the days of the great mathematician, mystic and medicine man, the most fundamental shamanic project was summarised as: “To die before you die, (you must undertake) a trip to the Underworld (Dreamland) through meditation, (to) the realm of death, to gain divine wisdom.”
So how will a phenomenon of this kind categorised as spiritual be subjected to research with observable and quantifiable results to meet the basic demands of the profession? That is part of the investigation in the book leaning on a long history of studies weighed against current developments and findings. However, science is warned against writing off what is not totally quantifiable while the spiritual angle must be more forthcoming in its revelations.
According to Omekara, the irreversible shift in the metaphysical perception of consciousness and reality, the ethical realignment, and the existential meaning that accompany spiritual awakening, are experiences that science must learn to engage with on their own terms. Postulations proposed by Charles Tart in his 2000 publication lent credence to this by stating that “science must include research specific methods suited to altered states of consciousness rather than expecting such states to conform to conventional waking cognition.” And as William James stated: “spiritual states are not pathological delusions but alternate ways of knowing.”
The 16th century Swiss-German physician Paracelsus who insisted that the dose makes the poison and invented laudanum, a tincture of opium, was equally famous for perfecting a combination of astrology, alchemy and theology in his healing process. Known as the father of toxicology and pharmacology, he deviated from herbal medicine preferring the use of chemicals in healing, redefined alchemy as not just the transmutation of base metals into gold but a tool for advancing the cause of medical practice while Jabir Ibn Hayyan̈ or Geber, a Muslim polymath who introduced systematic experimentation, distillation and crystallisation to alchemy, had transformed the same subject more than 700 years before Paracelsus, away from mystical, esoteric practice into a scientific, empirical discipline, shifting alchemy from speculative philosophy to experimental science, diiscovering numerous substances, including hydrochloric acid, nitric, citric, and acetic acids and in laboratory techniques, introduced sublimation, evaporation, and distillation.
In studying spirituality, the Oregon based public health scholar, educates us also in the tradition of these great minds and ancestors from many generations, and the huge legacy they left behind, plus his present day academic scholars and teachers that consciousness is the vehicle through which different manifestations of human nature are recorded.
The smile or anger on your face can be assessed by an instrument while the statement behind every successful man, there is a woman, cannot go undetected, just as the expression: as a man thinketh, so is he. Our thought patterns offer a clues to the healing process. Philosophers have spoken and written of mind over matter. Long before now, I have witnessed at a Rosicrucian convention in Los Angeles, the Imperator demonstrate how mind controls matter by applying mind power to play a musical note on an organ not controlled by anyone and from a distance. What Omekara has done in his research in Evidence-Based Spirituality: A New Frontier of Science, is an investigation, a comparative analysis and applied relativity in advancing the course of medicine. In doing this, he becomes a walking question mark that queries all things known and unknown to advance the cause of Albert Einstein’s relativity theorem and Isaac Newton’s gravity weighed against anti-gravity. Therefore physics, metaphysics, mysticism, occultism, witchcraft, traditional religion, Bhuddism, Zorostrianism, Christianity, Islam, biology, chemistry, alchemy, all branches of human endeavour, are investigated. And with a question: how can the results from these studies help advance the cause of medicine in a bid to help solve human problems, by asking: wait a minute, can we investigate shamanism for example, and reduce its truth to tangible, comprehensive and comprehensible values? If we get a minimal response or clue from speaking in tongues or fasting in terms of healing possibilities of man, can we continue with our investigations until tangible results are recorded?
In all this, the fear element is subsumed reminding us of Christ’s chastisement of his disciples who came to disturb his sleep because of a turbulent sea about to drown them. He rebuked the sea, walked on it and counselled against little faith. So the question to the eminent researcher is: can faith be quantified even in surgery and other forms of healing? He does not hesitate to respond in the positive referencing the works of other scholars till date.
Man’s journey across time has involved a rigorous study from Igboland, the seat of human civilisation as some scholars insist including Elder Obi Barth Oyibo Thompson-Centuries of Igbo Civilisation: Origin, Cosmology & Epistemology of the Igbo People-2025, and renowned scholar Professor Elizabeth Isichei-A History of the Igbo People (1976). This goes down to the looted archives of learning in Egypt, to Aristotle, Pythagoras, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Sheldrake, Roger Penrose, Dean Radin, and Ervin Laszlo, an endless array of scholars that have tried to investigate God and to which our recent entry in the Hall of Fame of Medicine-Evidence-Based Spirituality: A New Frontier of Science, has been admitted, the rank of scholars past and present including Francis Bacon, Michael Faraday, Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, who though did not practice or formally study medicine, made informal contributions through their works.
The take away here is the injunction of Alexander Pope to wit: Know then thyself; presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man, followed by the additional injunction: Man know thy self.
Some of the cautionary tales for researchers to imbibe include the counsel from the author that spirituality must be open to close scrutiny, self correction, and empirical dialogue, objectivity and accept that the inner world, though harder to measure, is no less real.
As the author put it: “The spiritual state is also being reframed in quantum terms. Spiritual traditions must become open to close scrutiny, self correction, and empirical dialogue.” Sheldrake, in his academic epistle of 2012 stated that science must recognise the limits of objectivity and accept that the inner world, though harder to measure, is no less real, while Roger Penrose, Dean Radin, and Ervin Laszlo, have suggested that some phenomena such as “telepathy, entanglement, non-locality, and observer-participation, may hold clues to the total comprehensive picture of consciousness.”
A historical work with a comprehensive literature review as this with reference points and case studies of acclaimed academics and distinguished practitioners left out the author’s teachers as well as African scholars such as Amenhotep, Egypt’s chief physician and royal scribe in the 19th dynasty, that have formed the core of medical research and advancement for centuries and in the age of modernism. It is a list that glows with eminent Nigerian researchers and teachers who have also gained global recognition.
It is hoped that the second edition of this important contribution to medical research will capture this aspect of medical history . Meanwhile a few deserve some mention: Martin Aghaji gained international recognition for his works in heart surgery, while Gabriel Ezeilo’s works in neutropenia are well documented. Gilbert Onuaguluchi, first Igbo professor of medicine, a reference point in pharmacology and therapeutics and Adeoye Lambo, the first Western trained pyschiatrist in Africa, are scholars who carry a stamp of distinction in their works.
Emmanuel Olatunde Odeku and Fabian Udekwu, were also documented as distinguished neurosurgeons while Dr Ameyo Adedevoh stood out in her war against ebola just as the rising star Onyema Ogbuagu was profiled for his pioneering role in the Covid 19 Pfizer trial.
Kofo Abayomi stands tall in modern medicine while mention must be made of the the US based award winning Njideka Udochi a a younger sibling of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has gained recognition for her devotion to family medicine. Theophilus Oladipo Ogunlesi is known as the first Nigerian professor of medicine and a pioneer in psychiatric medicine pairing with Maurice Iwu who has done much in community medicine in his discipline- pharmacognosy. James McCune Smith, an African-American is recorded as first African-American physician while Dr. Nathaniel Thomas King is documented as the first Nigerian doctor of Yoruba extraction. Dr Russell Aliyu Barau Dikko, was the first doctor from Northern Nigeria while Maryam Dija Ogebe remains the first female doctor, and Professor Ishaya Audu was the first Professor of medicine.
The first Igbo doctor was Simon Ezevuo Onwu, who was chairman of the Red Cross of Eastern Nigeria, African director of medical services of Eastern Nigeria, and a contemporary of another distinguished Igbo physician Dr Akanu Ibiam, a medical missionary who was governor of Eastern Nigeria and President World Council of Churches, and war time relief advocate.
Ada Priscilla Nzimro who graduated from Glasgow at 26, practiced and treated her patients free and died a year after. Her father Richard Okwosha Nzimiro who was the first mayor of Port Harcourt, together with his wife Mary Nwametu Onumonu renamed their school William Wilberforce Academy to Priscilla Memorial Grammar School Oguta.
There was Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi Nigeria’s first female physician who studied obstetrics and gynaecology and paved the way for such female physicians as Nzimiro
The book Evidence-Based Spirituality: A New Frontier of Science, belongs to the future and deserves a place in every library of Nigerian universities, the medical schools in particular, and as a research material for medical students.
