Subjective Matters

Magic pills are those modern concoctions, those man-made potions that provide “effects” to the body. Down our mouth, into our stomach, assimilated into the blood stream, out to the various organs — the body becomes a stage for a magic show beginning the moment we first decide to take the pill.

The Usual Suspect

The usual suspect for magic pills are the pharmaceutical productions. The magic show put on by Tylenol is reduced pain. The magic show put on by Prozac is emotional change. The magician is the man in a white lab coat and his stage the detailed studies, side effects, colorful diagrams, FDA approval, and billion dollar backing.

These pharmaceutical magic shows are not difficult to identify, though their easy identification does not make them easy to turn away from. The allure of these magical pills comes with the stated benefits.

Their hand-in-hand “negative side effects” are actually a benefit to the audience of the magic show. The side effects in all pharmaceutical productions ideally remind the audience that they should look away from time-to-time — that the show is not quite as safe as it seems. As wonderful as the benefits of the magic production may seem, someone just might get stabbed in the sword box.

The Unusual Suspect

A newer, more subtle type of magic pill comes under the banners of “natural”, “naturopathic”, “herbal”, and so on. The subtly of this magic show makes it more difficult to identify. Naturopathic magic pill productions are no less easy to turn away from, and their allure is similar — a laundry list of benefits.

The stage for the naturopathic magic show is set with herbs, minerals, vitamins, exotic ingredients from all corners of the globe, unusual body parts from the animal kingdom, no side-effects, “these statements not evaluated by the FDA”, combining to what is ultimately the anti-thesis of pharmaceuticals.

The lack of side effects, generally lower cost, and easier access (no prescription or white lab coat necessary), makes these shows that much more difficult to turn away from than the pharmaceutical variety.

Mentally, the advantage to naturopathic shows is of course built into the word itself — nature. It’s easier to conceive that we are putting something “of nature” into our bodies, than purely “of man” as in the pharmaceuticals.

Black Box Magic

Magic pills are like the popular magic trick where a person is placed in side of a box. The magician proceeds to stick swords into the box. From the outside of course it appears that the swords should be stabbing the person clean through. On the inside of the box, we don’t actually know what’s going, except that we’re fairly certain they will be unharmed despite outward appearances. That’s the magic of course, and the person exits the box unharmed.

We agree to get inside the magician’s sword box every time we take a magic pill. There is a duality with the magic pill, though — we become both audience and participant in the magic act. The inner workings of the trick, complicated into minute pill form, are hidden from us.

Perhaps the magician, or the man in the white lab coat, surrounded by the instruments of the trade, could be comfortable with the purpose of the trick. He could say it is doing x-y-z, with possible side effects in some black boxes of a-b-c. The instruments and studies would back him up.

But, we’re not the scientist or magician here. Instead we’re audience and participant rolled into one. The magician tells us we won’t get stabbed, and that perhaps there’s even a percent chance we’ll come out of it feeling “better”. And so we step in.

Why Not Magic?

So what’s the big deal? Should we proceed willingly into the illusion of healing through the magic pill? What’s wrong with being audience and participant on a stage that we ultimately believe will heal us?

The problem with magic pills and health is that they are one facet of a larger process where we literally give up the innate healing ability of our body to external factors — where we incorrectly say that our body is not capable of healing itself, but that it must be healed by external factors.

In a true magic show we give up our sensory perceptions to the magician for the purposes of momentary entertainment. The slight of hand, and the carefully crafted mechanics of the trick, are accepted for our entertainment purposes. We recognize this wholeheartedly as a temporary effect, and then we go about our lives.

But what if we left the theatre and the magic show continued on? What if we continued to put our perceptions and experience in the hands of external factors as we did in the theatre? We would live in a world where our perception and experience was guided and misguided by the whims of daily magicians who we pass by, each magician with his latest trick ready for show. You might say that some addiction follows this general trend of continuous magic — the giving up of experience to an external factor, the addictive substance itself. Authority is given to the addictive substance to control the experience of life, and a psychological dependency is created in which the substance is required to “feel better”.

The body requires basic nutrients. It requires clear emotions, feelings, and thoughts. It does not require magic. Giving up on the body in this way has far reaching side effects to other areas of health and life. It takes the power and art of healing off of the body and self, where it truly is, and places that power onto an external magical factor.

Magic When You See It

Nearly anything we consume whether in pill form or otherwise, is something that we might assign a “magical” status, without even realizing we are doing so — or realizing the long term consequences of that assignment.

In both our usual suspect, the pharmaceutical, and our unusual suspect, the naturopathic concoction, it’s not the actual ingredients that ultimately become a problem. Instead it is the complicated nature of the ingredients that allows us to become the one who is ultimately assigning the “magic” to the magic pill, just as every good audience does.

Whether with the scientifically constructed chemical in the pharmaceutical, or the 10 to 100 perfectly chosen ingredients in a naturopathic brew, it is the unknown-ness of the concoction that lends itself to a magical designation. The scientific chemical is inherently unknown, and the effects of 10-100 ingredients of a naturopathic are psychologically unknowable. Our thoughts can’t comprehend the myriad operations that go into the operation of our bodies, the beating of our own heart, much less the effects of magic pills on the whole system.

So how do we recognize when we are caught up in the magic, and how we do lessen it? Some things to look for:

1. When we assign, likely with the help of a magician, the outcome of the pill we take. This is my “feel good” medicine. These are my “happy pills”. This will help me “sleep at night”. We have taken the power of healing away from the body, and assigned that power to something we do to, or put into, the body.
2. When one company or product line has the “answer” for our ailment, and therefore is the sole magician or “best” magician in our mind. This is often the case with pharmaceuticals, but is also common with naturopathic medicine. Therefore, watch for any single product or company’s product that you think you absolutely need to “feel better”.
3. When the number of ingredients on the box is long. The “magic” seems to increase with the number of ingredients. This is especially common of naturopathic productions — although we can probably understand each ingredient individually, the combined effect of all ingredients is naturally magical. Try to keep individual ingredients in a single consumable as simple and “knowable” as possible.
4. Try to cut back on your magical pill usage. If you find that you have many magic pills — try to get that number down. Accept your body’s innate healing abilities as innately internal, not external.
5. Use food as much as possible. Food is typically quite comprehensible to mind and body, and has a far less likelyhood of becoming magical.

Magical Food

If every external consumable is potentially something that can be assigned a magical status, what about food? Food certainly applies here, though for the purposes of this article we’re talking about effects that we typically assign to things that go beyond routine nourishment or our taste buds.

The same criteria for identifying magic pills may be used to identify magic foods. Typically you’ll find these in the form of food concentrates and exotic products, such as fruits from other continents that have their own marketed laundry list of benefits. Of course there are also the typical psychological hang-ups that some of us have with food, for example, treating a bad day with ice cream.

Some of these are healthy, and some are not. Only you can know for sure. Keep a watch for how much authority and importance you’re assigning a given food as you eat it, if you’re unsure. You’ll know if you keep watch of your internal dialog as you consume it: “This has x ingredient in it, and x provides me y, and therefore I’ll be z because of it, I read an article about x ingredient, etc.”

The Author and Magic Pills

How is this author doing with magic pills in the real world? It’s tough — to be sure, we are bombarded constantly by advertisements of pharmaceuticals, and there are many alluring naturopathic pills out these days. Food concentrates and exotic fruits reign. I too have the ubiquitous cabinet of bottles.

As a basic rule, I try to weed out the vitamins with a laundry list of ingredients, and that I therefore cannot get from more than one company. For example, it’s the difference between taking simply “Vitamin C” and taking the magic form “Super-Charged Complex Immune Booster Vitamin C Concoction”. Simple “Vitamin C” is easier to understand, and less susceptible to magical connotations. Another helpful aspect of staying with the simple form is that it is more easily recognizable as existing in other forms of readily available food. I know I can eat an orange to get “Vitamin C”, but I cannot easily eat a combination of things to get to “Super-Charged Complex…”

Another basic rule is that if I’m interested in trying a new concentrate or concoction, I see what other concoction I could get rid of.

In short, concoctions are still a part of my life, however my attitude towards them strives to be different. Rather than viewing them as a necessity to health, I try to view them as a true supplement that my body can do or not do with as it pleases. This is a drastic change in normal attitudes that I am slowly working into to my personal perspective, and have already seen the positive results of.

Final Thoughts

Recognizing the magic show in pills and consumables is but one facet of the health balancing act. This a change of attitude, and will take patience as we watch our thoughts and emotions surrounding a consumable. This facet is about being more aware of our own mentality when we are giving an undeserved amount of authority and power to a specific consumable — when that view of the consumable starts to exceed the power and authority we attribute to our body and self in the health balancing act. Remind yourself when taking a pill that the body will do or not do with it as it pleases — this pill may or may not help the body. The body, therefore, is given the ultimate authority over the consumable.

Update: January 8th, 2008

After writing this article in May, 2007, I continued to look at my own magic pill use. While at the time of the original article I had already eliminated many of the magic pills associated with remedies and illness precaution, I was still taking about 5 vitamins / supplements per day. As with the remedies, over the years I’ve revolved the various supplements taken in a day. At that time I was taking a multi-vitamin, potassium / magnesium, fish oil, vitamin C, vitamin B, and vitamin D. For the past 6 months I’ve only been taking a multi-vitamin in the morning — no other vitamins / supplements. I consider the remaining multi-vitamin a simple nutrient catch-all for the varieties of food I’ll eat in the day.

So, except for the morning multi-vitamin, I’m living free of all other capsulized or concocted vitamins, supplements, remedies, and precautionary measures. When I’m around others who aren’t feeling well, I no longer load up on vitamin C as a prevention measure. When I travel, I don’t take airborne or some other brew as a shield against the world. It’s truly liberating to be free of mindsets that try to second guess the body’s innate abilities and processes. Magic pill recognition and elimination are one aspect of that total changed mindset. In many ways the mindset is a return to the innocence and outlook of childhood years. As children the world is a less fearful place. Germs and arbitrary consequences to the environment don’t exist yet. The world is not dangerous, but imminently consumable and breathable. Where our parents and society look to see germs and other areas that require arbitrary measures of protection, our child eyes see a field of exploration and play.

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