Scientific Music

Just yesterday, a news item related to my Mother-in-law appeared in the three most widely-read newspapers of Kerala and also their respective news channels. I think the videos are still online in their web portals.

Now, my Mother-in-love is the HOD of Paediatrics in the Medical College of her city. She has also held very senior positions in Paediatrics in the state of Kerala as well. She is a very respected person in her field professionally. Personally, she is a very religious person, not spiritual, but religious. And she just proved something the day before that is kind of detrimental to her own position of that of a doctor, and ipso facto, of that of a soldier of the scientific method.

Two days back, she revived to full consciousness a 6 year-old girl who was comatose for two months. Her primary method for vivifying this girl was music therapy. Music therapy and the scientific world don't go hand in hand. First, there is nothing scientific about music, and music therapy might definitely not hold its ground against the rigours of the much vaunted scientific method, which doctors and engineers will hold on dear till death do their intellects apart. And the scientific method is based on observable, empirical and measurable evidence. Music therapy is neither empirical in terms of cause-effect, nor measurable in any means, (e.g. 80dB=100% consciousness), and observable evidence might surely not be replicable in identical settings. Which means, music therapy is a cartload of sophistry, which deserves scorn from the scientific community.

But then, the girl is back to normal from a perfectly vegetative state to a perfectly normal state. This only goes to show that absence of proof of efficacy is never proof of absence of efficacy. And furthermore, life does not always follow laws, especially scientific laws. Holisitc healing is an affront to the ego, but, if health has to be holistic, and it very well is in spite of what the doctors would like to think so, healing has to be as well. What then, is the fundamental problem to holistic healing? Holistic healing is, quite unfortunately, predicated on spirituality. If the Medical world has to be honest to their profession, and actually internalize their marketing phrase of 'cure is from above', they have to truly open their minds and accept with humility, the power of an unseen hand that directs the waves on the ocean, as much as the hand of the surgeon.

Unfounded articles like that of Prahlad knowing all that was needed to be known even before he was born, or that of chanting of Vishnu Sahasranamam during pregnancy being beneficial to the yet unborn, seem quite laughable to anyone from the scientific community. But the ego of the intelligent is a maya unto itself, and this veil can only be lifted by a courageous hand, a courageous hand of humility that is willing to accept that intelligence is not everything, and that God is the only goal worth striving for.