Category Archives: Transhuman News

In 2010, Rebecca Skloot published The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a compelling look at Henrietta Lacks story, her impact on medical science, and important bioethical issues. That book became the basis for the HBO/Harpo film by the same name, which was released in April 2017.

Henrietta Lacks was one of a diverse group of patients who unknowingly donated cells at Hopkins in 1951. The donation of Henrietta Lacks' cells began what was the first, and, for many years, the only human cell line able to reproduce indefinitely.

Her cells, known as HeLa cells for Henrietta Lacks, remain a remarkably durable and prolific line of cells used in research around the world. This guide addresses several important health care, research and ethical themes addressed in the book and in the movie.

Johns Hopkins applauds and regularly participates in efforts to raise awareness of the life and story of Henrietta Lacks. We were proud to support the book research and development of the film by providing full access to the Hopkins archives and granting permission to HBO to film several scenes for the movie on the Hopkins campus.

The publication of Skloots book led Johns Hopkins to review our interactions with Henrietta Lacks and with the Lacks family over more than 50 years. At several points across those decades, we found that Johns Hopkins could have and should have done more to inform and work with members of Henrietta Lacks family out of respect for them, their privacy and their personal interests.

We are deeply committed to the ongoing efforts at our institutions and elsewhere to honor the contributions of Henrietta Lacks and to ensure the appropriate protection and care of the Lacks familys medical information.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks | Johns Hopkins Medicine

Reishi is a traditional Chinese mushroom with adaptogenic properties that provides many benefits.

The purported health benefits of reishi include control of blood glucose levels, modulation of the immune system, liver support, bacteriostasis, and more.

In this article, we will look at the benefits of reishi, its safety, and its history.

Reishi, also known as the Mushroom of Immortality, is a fungus that grows out of decaying wood. It is considered to be one of the most beneficial herbal remedies in traditional Chinese medicine.

In China, this mushroom is called lingzhi.

It is a large, dark brownish-red mushroom with a glossy exterior and a woody texture. The exterior of the mushroom has a varnished sheen to it.

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Reishi has been used for thousands of years for its medicinal benefits.

According to TCM teachers, lingzhi acts to replenish Qi, ease the mind, and relieve cough and asthma, and it is recommended for dizziness, insomnia, palpitation, and shortness of breath (Wachtel-Galor, Yuen, & Buswell, 2011).

Today Reishi is commonly used to aid the immune system. New research also shows that this mushroom may have promising benefits for cancer patients, more on this below.

Considerable evidence supports the use of Reishi mushrooms for supporting the immune system.

Various in vitro (i.e. test tube) studies show that the phytochemicals within Reishi work to increase white blood cells, NK cells, and increase macrophage activity (Wachtel-Galor, Yuen, & Buswell, 2011).

In particular, reishi works to increase innate immune function.

Innate immunity, also known as natural immunity or non-specific immunity, is a series of defense mechanisms that respond quickly to various invading pathogenic microorganisms. They also play an important role in the initiation and effect processes of specific immunity.

Studies have found that a variety of innate immune cells such as natural killer (NK) cells, dendritic cells (DCs), and macrophages can regulate the innate immune response.

Enhancing the bodys non-specific immunity is of great significance to improve the overall immune function of the body.

Recent research shows that Reishi may have some promise in combatting cancer.

The initial research involving reishi and cancer was conducted in the 1980s in animal models. Reduction in cancer growth by 74%-95% was shown in a variety of different trials (Wachtel-Galor, Yuen, & Buswell, 2011).

While the initial animal studies looked very promising, human clinical trials havent been as clear-cut.

Two primary studies showed that reishi mushrooms helped to increase cellular immunity in 80% of the patients involved (Gao et al, 2003). In addition, quality of life scores were improved in around 65% of the patients involved.

Reishi is rich in powerful antioxidants, which have a variety of health benefits.

Antioxidants protect cells from oxidative damage, this helps to decrease the risk of mutations and carcinogenesis and also protect immune cells, allowing them to maintain immune surveillance and response.

Various test-tube studies have been conducted to show the effects of Reishi and its antioxidant properties. In particular, one study showed that reishi extract protects against oxidative damage induced by reactive oxygen species (Lee et al, 2001).

New animal research shows that reishi may be helpful in stabilizing blood sugar.

A trial conducted on mice showed that reishi extract help tolower the serum glucose levels in obese/diabetic mice, with effects seen after the first week of treatment (Seto et al, 2009).

As with all animal trials, this should be taken with a grain of salt. Further human clinical research is needed.

Safety Class: 1 (can be safely used when consumed properly)

Interaction Class: A (no clinically relevant reactions are expected)

Reishi mushrooms are generally well tolerated and safe to be taken by most people. Allergic reactions are rare but have been reported. There are no known contraindications or precautions to taking Reishi (Gardner & McGuffin, 2013).

There are no known cautions with taking reishi during pregnancy.

Tincture (1:5): 45 mL (80100 drops), three or four times per day.

Decoction: Add 12 oz. dried cut/sifted mushroom to 32 oz. water. Simmer slowly for 24 hours until reduced by one-half (16 oz.). Take up to three or four cups per day.

Capsules: Mycelial extracts. Take three 500 to 1000 mg tablets, three times per day.

Scientifically, Reishi is known as Ganoderma lucidum. The word lucidum is latin for shiny, which refers to the varnished appearance of the surface of the mushroom.

The Chinese name of this mushroom is Lingzhi, which translates as spirit plant.

Red reishi is relatively rare in the wild, and throughout the history of China, its use was restricted mostly to the emperor, his court, and the upper classes.

Reishi has been used in Chinese medicine for just over 2000 years.

Wild lingzhi is rare, and in the years before it was cultivated, only the nobility could afford it.

The sacred fungus was said to grow in the abodes of the immortals, on the three aisles of bliss off Chinas coast.

Its reputation as a cure-all, however, may have been enhanced more by its scarcity, and use by the rich and powerful members of Chinese society rather than by its genuine effects.

Nevertheless, theGanodermaspecies continue to be a popular traditional medicine in Asia and their use is growing throughout the world (Winston, 2019).

Reishi contains immunostimulating polysaccharides known as -glucans, bitter triterpenes such as ganoderic acid and ganoderenic acid, and a protein known as ling zhi-8 protein.

Adaptogen, immune stimulant

Reishi is a safe herb with promising adaptogenic and immune-supporting effects, as well as the ability to potentially stabilize blood sugar.

Consider using reishi and helping to naturally support your body.

As always, speak to your doctor before starting any herbal regimen or supplement plan that may interfere with medications you are taking for existing medical conditions.

Gardner, Z., McGuffin, M. (2013). The botanical safety handbook [2nd edition]. American Herbal Products Association

Gao Y. H, Sai X. H, Chen G. L, Ye J. X, Zhou S. F. (2003). A randomized, placebo-controlled, multi-center study of Ganoderma lucidum (W. Curt.: Fr.) Lloyd (Aphyllophoromycetideae) polysaccharides (Ganopoly) in patients with advanced lung cancer. Int J Med Mushrooms. 2003;5:36881.

Lee, J. M., Kwon, H., Jeong, H., Lee, J. W., Lee, S. Y., Baek, S. J., & Surh, Y. J. (2001). Inhibition of lipid peroxidation and oxidative DNA damage by Ganoderma lucidum. Phytotherapy research : PTR, 15(3), 245249. https://doi.org/10.1002/ptr.830

Seto, S. W., Lam, T. Y., Tam, H. L., Au, A. L., Chan, S. W., Wu, J. H., Yu, P. H., Leung, G. P., Ngai, S. M., Yeung, J. H., Leung, P. S., Lee, S. M., & Kwan, Y. W. (2009). Novel hypoglycemic effects of Ganoderma lucidum water-extract in obese/diabetic (+db/+db) mice. Phytomedicine : international journal of phytotherapy and phytopharmacology, 16(5), 426436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phymed.2008.10.004

Wachtel-Galor, S., Yuen, J., Buswell, J.A., et al. (2011) Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi or Reishi): A Medicinal Mushroom. In: Benzie IFF, Wachtel-Galor S, editors. Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects. 2nd edition. Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press/Taylor & Francis. Chapter 9. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92757/

Winston, David. (2019). Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief (2nd ed.). Inner Traditions/Bear & Company.

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Reishi: Benefits, Dosage, Safety, & Preparation - The Botanical Institute

In the third part of this series offering advice on decolonising the teaching of medicine, we discuss the importance of uncovering the full picture, surfacing silenced voices and information that has long been left out of curricula.

Unearthing inventors or inventions, events and issues that may not have been documented accurately or comprehensively is a big task. As educators, we need to be mindful and agile in actively searching for holistic information and hidden, silenced or sidelined voices.

This collaborative resource, which brings in student perspectives, provides examples on how to take the initiative to try to uncover the full picture. There are several questions to help with this process.

When examples of scientists and inventors are provided in the classroom, they are often portrayed for their excellence, inventions or contributions to specific fields. Lecturers are either unaware or leave out the potentially ugly parts of how progress has really been made. Acknowledging colonialism and the long-lasting negative impact it has had on racialised and marginalised communities would require the acknowledgement that much of our knowledge and higher education is also built on a colonial foundation.

In medicine, James Marion Sims is an apt example, because he has been widely celebrated in medicine as the hero of modern surgical gynecology. He is lauded for the development of surgical techniques that his predecessors failed at, and tools such as the speculum, used today for vaginal examinations. Undoubtedly, women are benefitting from the knowledge he produced through his research. Classroom discussions would typically revolve around his expertise, successes, resilience and brilliance.

Keep asking questions: Yet we need to ask, how did he perfect his techniques? Were they ethical? Where are the records of those voices that were part of his surgical experimentation? Sims had practised his techniques on a group of enslaved African American women, performing his surgeries without anaesthetic while using anaesthetic when later operating on white women. Some of the names of these women who were misused for the purpose of medical research were Anarcha, Betsy and Lucy.

Dont hide the ugly parts: While important to acknowledge the advancement in surgical gynaecology, it is equally important to elevate the voices of people who were unjustly treated or oppressed in the name of scientific advancement. These stories might be difficult to tell or read but omitting them and presenting only the success or positive stories continues to perpetuate the violence and oppression marginalised groups have faced in medical history. This is relevant to contemporary medicine and across all disciplines.

Search actively for objective narratives: Educators must look for sources that paint an accurate picture of the ethically dubious practices of researchers in the past, rather than simply glorifying their achievements. A good example comes from an article in the New York Times about Saul Krugman, focusing on his immense contributions to paediatric immunology, which resulted in the development of vaccines for hepatitis and measles, helping millions. However, it does not properly hold Krugman accountable for his role in the controversial Willowbrook study in which disabled children, mostly lacking a social safety net to protect them, were given faecal matter to purposely infect them with hepatitis and study its effects. Educators must acknowledge the failures of the past, include voices outside the Eurocentric lens and make judicious selection of sources.

There is a false assumption that knowledge is produced and disseminated in the Global North. This makes it a responsibility of educators to provide examples of hidden figures whose contributions to the advancement of their field have been systematically unrecognised. But teachers should go further, not only giving proper credit to hitherto unrecognised figures, but making students aware of the epistemicide of knowledge from marginalised groups and the Global South throughout history.

This allows students to critically analyse information they may otherwise accept passively as the objective truth, when in reality it is often clouded by stories told from a colonial lens, particularly in medicine.

Search actively for unrecognised voices: A simple Google search highlights multiple sources pointing to Jonas Salk as the principal inventor of the polio vaccine. An article in History celebrates his contribution to the discovery of the vaccine and his life. However, delving deeper you will find the significant role of multiple African American researchers, including Russel W. Brown, the director of Tuskegees Carver Research Institute, and his assistant James Henderson. Aided by cell culture supervisor Norma Gaillard, and Maria Telkes, who developed a packaging solution to keep cells cool during transport, they created the first HeLa cell factory. Despite their groundbreaking intellectual and practical contribution to the development of the vaccine, the names of these scientists are rarely mentioned or known. It is not unlikely that it is because of the researchers race, and gender. These scientists must be celebrated in the classroom, not just for the sake of diversity but for the authentic contributions they have made, which have been hidden and unrecognised.

Search actively for voices who are not credited: it is of note that HeLa cells themselves derive from the body of a black woman, Henrietta Lacks. Despite her immortal cell lines continuing to allow innovative research, Lacks contribution, through the cancer that ultimately killed her, is often hidden in both research and derived lectures. She gave no consent, and her family is yet to receive any compensation, despite many discoveries coming from and scientists profiting from the research she has facilitated.

With these examples in mind, it is clear that lecturers need a deeper understanding of the history of colonisation in education and research, which will encourage them to uncover the truth: that contributions exist beyond the white, male, cishet perspective. Lecturers understanding of the ethical and educational failures of the past will create more open-minded, critically astute students. This will play a pivotal role in decolonising education and driving research forward.

Musarrat Maisha Reza is senior lecturer in biomedical sciences and Emily Calvo-Hobbs is a second-year medical sciences student, both at the University of Exeter.

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Decolonising medical curricula, part three | THE Campus Learn, Share, Connect - Times Higher Education

From cities in the sky to robot butlers, futuristic visions fill the history ofPopSci. In theAre we there yet?column we check in on progress towards our most ambitious promises. Read the series and explore all our 150th anniversary coveragehere.

In 1923, Popular Science reported that people were drinking radium-infused water in an attempt to stay young. How far have we come to a real (and non-radioactive) cure for aging?

From the time Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered radium in 1898, it was quickly understood that the new element was no ordinary metal. When the Curies finally isolated pure radium from pitchblende (a mineral ore) in 1902, they determined that the substance was a million times more radioactive than uranium. At the time, uranium was already being used in medicine to X-ray bones and even treat cancer tumors, a procedure first attempted in 1899 by Tage Sjogren, a Swedish doctor. Coupled with radiums extraordinary radioactivity and unnatural blue glow, the mineral was soon touted as a cure for everything including cancer, blindness, and baldness, even though radioactivity had only been used to treat malignant tumors. As Popular Science reported in June 1923, it was even believed that a daily glassful of radium-infused water would restore youth and extend life, making it the latest in a long line of miraculous elixirs.

By May 1925 The New York Times was among the first to report cancer cases linked to radium. Two years later, five terminally ill women, who became known as the Radium Girls, sued the United States Radium Corporation where they had worked, hand-painting various objects with the companys poisonous pigment. As more evidence emerged of radiums carcinogenic effects, its cure-all reputation quickly faded, although it would take another half-century before the last of the luminous-paint processing plants was shut down. Radium is still used today in nuclear medicine to treat cancer patients, and in industrial radiography to X-ray building materials for structural defectsbut its baseless status as a life-extending elixir was short-lived.

And yet, radiums downfall did not end the true quest for immortality: Our yearning for eternal youth continues to inspire a staggering range of scientifically dubious products and services.

Since the early days of civilization, when Sumerians etched one of the first accounts of a mortal longing for eternal life in the Epic of Gilgamesh on cuneiform tablets, humans have sought a miracle cure to defy aging and defer death. Five thousand years ago in ancient Egypt, priests practiced corpse preservation so a persons spirit could live on in its mummified host. Fortunately, anti-aging biotech has advanced from mummification and medieval quests for the fountain of youth, philosophers stone, and holy grail, as well as the perverse practices of sipping metal-based elixirs, bathing in the blood of virgins, and even downing Radium-infused water in the early 20th century. But what hasnt changed is that the pursuit of eternal youth has largely been sponsored by humankinds wealthiest citizens, from Chinese emperors to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

Weve all long recognized that aging is the greatest risk factor for the overwhelming majority of chronic diseases, whether it be Alzheimers disease, cancer, osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases, or diabetes, says Nathan LeBrasseur, co-director of The Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. But weve really kind of said, well, theres nothing we can do about senescence [cellular aging], so lets move on to more prevalent risk factors that we think we can modify, like blood pressure or high lipids. In the last few decades, however, remarkable breakthroughs in aging research have kindled interest and opened the funding spigots. Fortunately, the latest efforts have been grounded in more established scienceand scientific methodsthan was available in radiums heyday.

In the late 19th century, just as scientists began zeroing in on germs with microscopes, evolutionary biologist August Weismann delivered a lecture on cellular aging, or senescence. The Duration of Life (1881) detailed his theory that cells had replication limits, which explained why the ability to heal diminished with age. It would take 80 years to confirm Weismanns theory. In 1961, biologists Leonard Hayflick and Paul Moorhead observed and documented the finite lifespan of human cells. Another three decades later, in 1993, Cynthia Kenyon, a geneticist and biochemistry professor at the University of California, San Francisco, discovered how a specific genetic mutation in worms could double their lifespans. Kenyons discovery gave new direction and hope to the search for eternal youth, and wealthy tech entrepreneurs were eager to fund the latest quest: figuring out how to halt aging at the cellular level. (Kenyon is now vice president of Calico Research Labs, an Alphabet subsidiary.)

Weve made such remarkable progress in understanding the fundamental biology of aging, says LeBrasseur. Were at a new era in science and medicine, of not just asking the question, what is it about aging that makes us at risk for all these conditions? But also is there something we can do about it? Can we intervene?

In modern aging research labs, like LeBrasseurs, the focus is to tease apart the molecular mechanisms of senescence and develop tools and techniques to identify and measure changes in cells. The ultimate goal is to discover how to halt or reverse the changes at a cellular level.

But the focus on the molecular mechanisms of aging is not new. In his 1940 book, Organisers and Genes, theoretical biologist Conrad Waddington offered a metaphor for a cells life cyclehow it grows from an embryonic state to something specific. In Waddingtons epigenetic landscape, a cell starts out in its unformed state at the top of a mountain with the potential to roll downhill in any direction. After encountering a series of forks, the cell lands in a valley, which represents the tissue it becomes, like a skin cell or a neuron. According to Waddington, epigenetics are the external mechanisms of inheritanceabove and beyond standard genetics, such as chemical or environmental factorsthat lead the cell to roll one way or another when it encounters a fork. Also according to Waddington, who first proposed the theory of epigenetics, once the cell lands in its valley, it will remain there until it diesso, once a skin cell, always a skin cell. Waddington viewed cellular aging as a one-way journey, which turns out to be not so accurate.

We know now that even cells of different types keep changing as they age, says Morgan Levine, who until recently led her own aging lab at the Yale School of Medicine, but is now a founding principal investigator at Altos Labs, a lavishly funded startup. The [Waddington] landscape keeps going. And the new exciting thing is reprogramming, which shows us that you can push the ball back the other way.

Researchers like Levine continue to discover new epigenetic mechanisms that can be used to not only determine a cells age (epigenetic or biological clock) but also challenge Waddingtons premise that a cells life is one way. Cellular reprogramming is an idea first attempted in the 1980s and later advanced by Nobel Prize recipient Shinya Yamanaka, who discovered how to revert mature, specialized cells back to their embryonic, or pluripotent, state, enabling them to start fresh and regrow, for instance, into new tissue like liver cells or teeth.

I like to think of the epigenome as the operating system of a cell, Levine explains. So more or less all the cells in your body have the same DNA or genome. But what makes the skin cell different from a brain cell is the epigenome. It tells a cell which part of the DNA it should use thats specific to it. In sum, all cells start out as embryonic or stem cells, but what determines a cells end state is the epigenome.

Theres been a ton of work done with cells in a dish, Levine adds, including taking skin cells from patients with Alzheimers disease, converting them back to stem cells, and then into neurons. For some cells, you dont always have to go back to the embryonic stem cell, you can just convert directly to a different cell type, Levine says. But she also notes that what works in a dish is vastly different from what works in living specimens. While scientists have experimented with reprogramming cells in vivo in lab animals with limited success, the ramifications are not well understood. The problem is when you push the cells back too far [in their life cycle], they dont know what theyre supposed to be, says Levine. And then they turn into all sorts of nasty things like teratoma tumors. Still, shes hopeful that many of the problems with reprogramming may be sorted out in the next decade. Levine doesnt envision people drinking cellular-reprogramming cocktails to stave off agingat least not in the foreseeable futurebut she does see early-adopter applications for high-risk patients who, lets say, can regrow their organs instead of requiring transplants.

While the quest for immortality is still funded largely by the richest of humans, it has morphed from the pursuit of mythical objects, miraculous elements, and mystical rituals to big business, raising billions to fund exploratory research. Besides Calico and Altos Labs (funded by Russian-born billionaire Yuri Milner and others), theres Life Biosciences, AgeX Therapeutics, Turn Biotechnologies, Unity Biotechnology, BioAge Labs, and many more, all founded in the last decade. While theres considerable hype for these experimental technologies, any actual products and services will have to be approved by regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, which did not exist when radium was being promoted as a cure-all in the US.

While were working on landing long-term moon shots like editing genomes with CRISPR and reprogramming epigenomes to halt or reverse aging, LeBrasseur sees near-term possibilities in repurposing existing drugs to prop up senescent cells. When a cell gets old and damaged, it has one of three choices: to succumb, in which case it gets flushed from the system; to repair itself because the damage is not so bad; or to stop replicating and hang around as a zombie cell. Not only do [zombie cells] not function properly, explains LeBrasseur, but they secrete a host of very toxic molecules known as senescence associated secretory phenotype, or SASP. Those toxic molecules trigger inflammation, the precursor to many diseases.

It turns out there are drugs, originally targeted at other diseases, that are already in anti-aging trials because theyve shown potential to impact cell biology at a fundamental level, effectively staving off senescence. Although rapamycin was originally designed to suppress the immune system in organ transplant patients, and metformin to assist diabetes patients, both have shown anti-aging promise. When you start looking at data from an epidemiological lens, you recognize that these individuals [like diabetes patients taking metformin] often have less cardiovascular disease, notes LeBrasseur. They also have lower incidence of cancer, and theres some evidence that they may even have lower incidence of Alzheimers disease. Even statins (for cardiovascular disease) and SGL2 inhibitors (another diabetes drug) are being explored for a possible role in anti-aging. Of course, senescence is not all bad. It plays an important role, for example, as a protective mechanism against the development of malignant tumorsso tampering with it could have its downsides. Biology is so smart that weve got to stay humble, right? says LeBrasseur.

Among other things, the Radium Girls taught us to avoid the hype and promise of new and unproven technologies before the pros and cons are well understood. Weve already waited millennia for a miracle elixir, making some horrific choices along the way, including drinking radioactive water as recently as a century ago. The 21st century offers its own share of anti-aging quackery, including unregulated cosmetics, questionable surgical procedures, and unproven dietary supplements. While we may be closer than weve ever been in human history to real solutions for the downsides of aging, there are still significant hurdles to overcome before we can reliably restore youth. It will take years or possibly decades of research, followed by extensive clinical trials, before todays anti-aging research pays dividendsand even then its not likely to come in the form of a cure-all cocktail capable of bestowing immortality. In the meantime, LeBrasseurs advice is simple for those who can afford it: You dont have to wait for a miracle cure. Lifestyle choices like physical activity, nutritional habits, and sleep play a powerful role on our trajectories of aging. You can be very proactive today about how well you age. Unfortunately, not everyone has the means to follow LeBrasseurs medical wisdom. But the wealthiest among usincluding those funding immortalitys questmost definitely do.

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Radium was once cast as an elixir of youth. Are todays ideas any better? - Popular Science

By Wesley M Jose

Brain tumour is a common term to describe all the cancers that can affect the brain. Brain can have primary tumours, which means the tumour begins in the brain, or secondary tumors (also known as metastatic) which have started elsewhere but have now migrated to the brain.

Conventionally, the term brain tumour is indicative of primary brain tumour. All brain tumours are not malignant. Some may be slow-growing and benign. But even the tumor that is slow growing may invade into other nearby structures and cause symptoms.

These tumours may arise from different parts of the brain for example, the tumour arising from meninges, which is the covering layer of the brain, is called meningioma; or gliomas, which arise from the supporting cells of the brain called glia. The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies primary tumours into low grade (grade 1 and 2) and high grade (grade 3 and 4).

Brain tumours arise due to abnormal genes and chromosomes, which lead to uncontrolled growth and increase of a particular kind of cell in the brain. The affected genes are primarily related to control of cell growth, repair of the damaged cells and senescence (meaning cells getting old and dying). An intrinsic loss of control on cell multiplication, inability to repair the damaged non-functional cell and ability of the damaged cells to continue living instead of self-destructing (becoming immortal) is the primary reason for occurrence of these tumours.

Such gene abnormality may be genetically inherited from parents or may be acquired later in life. A well known acquired factor for brain tumors is exposure to radiation like in blood cancer treatment of children where radiation to the brain is a part of treatment. Such tumours arise 10-15 years after the radiation exposure.

Most people with brain tumours do not have any family history but in rare situations the tumours may be familial. If you have a close family member (related by blood) who has a diagnosis of neurofibromatosis, tuebrous sclerosis, von-hippel landau sybndrome, Li fraumeni, turcot syndrome, Lynch syndrome, then you too may be at risk.

Lately there have been debates about use of cellular phones causing brain tumours. The cell phones produce radiofrequency waves and not ionising radiation (which causes cancer). The available medical data from large studies does not support this association. However, if you are concerned, it would be prudent to avoid long use of cellular phones.

Similar to cell phones, living near high-tension power lines (producing string electromagnetic fields) has also been blamed but is yet unproven.

The other environmental factors that have been blamed for causing brain tumors are petroleum products, vinyl chloride which is used in plastic manufacture.

Using sugar substitute called aspartame, infection by certain viruseshave also been suggested as possible risk factors. But there is no foolproof evidence for the same.

Since there are no specific proven environmental factors that cause primary brain tumour, it may be difficult to make standard guidelines for prevention of brain tumour. This means the emphasis still remains in knowing whether you have a family history in which case you could do germline testing to identify whether you are at risk.

If you do not have a family history, it is best to approach a hospital if you have any unexplainable symptoms which you consider needs attention. The best person to approach for a brain-related issue may be a physician or neurologist who has reasonable means to evaluate you.

While symptoms may vary depending on the location of the tumour, these are some of the signs that should prompt you to see a doctor:

The author is Associate Professor (Lead Neuro-oncology Services), Medical Oncology, AIMS Kochi

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World Brain Tumour Day 2022: Know Types Of Brain Tumour, What Causes It And When To See A Doctor - ABP Live

Icon of Jesus with the eucharist. Photograph by Henry Karlson of an icon he owns.

Christ, working with the Spirit, brings us all the sacraments. Christ and the Spirit always work together, not only in the way all the persons of the Trinity work together as one in their divine unity. but also in relation to the economy of salvation. This can be seen both in the way the Spirit dwells upon the incarnate God-man, and in the sending of the Spirit by God-man. Christ sends the Spirit into the world so that the Spirit can render all things holy, making them vessels of grace ( this is especially true in regards the sacraments). Christ and the Spirit truly work together in the establishment of sacraments, giving them what they need to be transformed from ordinary objects and rituals into offerings of special graces to those who partake of them. But as they come from the united work of Christ and the Spirit, the sacrament which best represents this is the eucharist, for in it, Christ and the Spirit work together to transform the gifts of bread and wine into Christ himself. With the eucharist, we partake of and commune with Christ, partaking of him in his whole reality (a reality which, of course, includes the Spirit). As we partake of Christ in his entirety, we partake of all that he has to offer. This is why St. Albert the Great could declare the eucharist to be the sacrament of sacraments containing within it all the graces found in all the other sacraments:

This is the sacrament of sacraments, the Eucharist, containing every grace, food giving growth for eternal life, viaticum strengthening us to complete the journey of our exile, and the pledge of eternal salvation, and the communication of all holiness.[1]

Thus, St. Albert concluded, whatever can be found in the other sacraments, can also be found in the eucharist: Whatever graces are scattered to be gathered in all the [other] sacraments and virtues, the whole is found here together in one grace.[2] We have within the eucharist, therefore, what is available in penance, that is, the forgiveness of sins, for atonement is established in and through it:

For this sacrament brings the grace of communion, and beyond this, the grace of atonement, and upon these two it piles the grace of redemption, and in addition to these three it piles upon the grace of vivification, and beyond these four, it gives the grace of spiritual refreshment, and beyond these five, it signifies to us the glory of eternal beatitude. [3]

This is because what is offered in the eucharist is the whole of Christ, including the body and blood of Christ; when we partake of the eucharist, we receive the victim who offered himself up as a loving sacrifice for us and our sins. And so, as Hugh of St. Victor indicated, the eucharist can be said to be the sacrament which brings about our salvation:

The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ is one of those upon which salvation principally depends and it is peculiar among all, since from it is all sanctification. For that victim who was offered once for the salvation of the world gave virtue to all the preceding and subsequent sacraments, so that from it they sanctify all who are to be freed through it.[4]

And so we can see given to us by the eucharist the grace given in penance, that is, the remission of sins:

So, as often as you receive, what does the Apostle say to you? As often as we receive, we proclaim the death of the Lord. If the death, we proclaim the remission of sins. If, as often as blood is shed, it is shed for the remission of sins, I ought to always to accept Him, that He may always dismiss my sins. I, who always sin, should always have a remedy.[5]

The eucharist is not only spiritual medicine, healing us from the wounds of our sins, but it also strengthens us, making us greater, more virtuous, more charitable, that is, move loving. And this sacrament was instituted for two causes: for the increase of virtue, namely of charity, and as medicine for our daily infirmity. [6] When we properly partake of it with the right faith and intention, it can and will work in us to transform us. Christ becomes a part of us even as we become a part of Christ:

It is Christs body and blood entering into the compassion of our soul and body without being consumed, without being corrupted, without passing into they privy God forbid! but into our substance for our sustenance, a bulwark against every sort of harm and a purifier from all uncleanliness as if He were to take adultered gold and purify it by the discerning fire, so that in the life to come we shall not be condemned with the world. [7]

The eucharist is a gift given to us, giving us the graces which we need for our spiritual healing as well as for our spiritual improvement, indeed, our spiritual transformation so that we can become deified. We become as it were, what we eat, and since what we receive is the God-man, we become to God:

The body of Christ is received presently under an appearance, that is, sacramentally, in order to signify that union by which we will be conformed to God. This will happen when we will see Him as He is. Nevertheless, those who receive [the Eucharist] worthily do not receive less than the reality itself. And it is not surprising that this receiving [of the body of Christ] is a sign of some union, considering that all things whatsoever that are in the Church on earth are signs of future realities. For in the future there will be no things that are signs of other things. And this is what it means to receive by the truth of the reality, that is, not figuratively. [8]

As what we receive is grace, we must stop thinking of it as something which we can merit. We cant. What it gives us transcends what we can ever do. No matter how many virtuous acts we have done, they will be nothing in comparison to the deifying grace offered to us in the eucharist. Likewise, no matter how many sins we have done, once again, as the eucharist is for our spiritual healing, we should not think our sins make us so unworthy that we cannot receive it, for then, if we think that, we will not receive the gift God wants us to have. So long as we remember the eucharist is a gift, we will be led to think rightly, but if we think of it along the terms of something some people merit, and so something others do not, we could be led to reject the very gift which we need. Thus, St. Albert said, not only is it grace and so a gift, all it is, is that grace, that gift:

And not only is it grace, but it can be nothing but grace, since it can be obtained by no merit or prayer or price. For who can obtain by worthy merits, or by a worthy price or prayer, what God has provided for his poor in his unique sweetness. [9]

No matter how wretched we think we are, the eucharist is offered to us, that is, for the forgiveness of our sins and for our spiritual transformation. Upon this fullness of communion in every grace, it piles the grace of atonement from all the crimes of sinners. For nothing is ever atoned by which the blood of Christ did not atone for and repair. [10]We must always keep in mind its reception is never based upon how worthy we are, for none of us are worthy of the transcendent grace. It is the eucharistic gift, the thanksgiving gift, which we are to receive properly, that is, with a spirit of love and thanksgiving:

And the wretched and destitute soul is delighted by the richness of the sweetness of God. And no one can merit this, nor buy it. And so it can be nothing but grace. For if what is held freely is called grace, this sacrament, in which God gives himself to us, can be nothing but grace. [11]

While it is a gift, and so not something we merit, we must appreciate the gift, and what is offered to us by it, so that we can properly engage it and allow it to work in our behalf. This is why it is said we must receive it in a worthily manner, not because it means we must merit it, but because we must come to it in the right spirit so that we can and will cooperate with the grace which is being given to us by it. This is true, not only for the eucharist, but with all sacraments; if we come to them in an unworthy manner, we can hinder the grace which is being offered by them. We can partake of the sacraments unworthily, not because we have to be sinless to partake them, but we have to come with the right intention and the right spirit to receive them, and if we do not, that will make us come unworthily. With the eucharist, we must open ourselves to it and its grace by coming to it in a spirit of love, one which is open to communion, not only with Christ, but with all those who partake of the eucharist with us. Thus, to partake of the eucharist worthily, we must come to it with the right spirit, respecting the sacrament, respecting Christ, respecting our neighbor, and of course, with a willingness to let the sacrament transform us, to let its grace make us better. If we take it with the wrong intention, just like if we go to confession never intending to repent and change our ways, then our intention, our ill-will, is what is unworthy, and we risk the consequences of that ill-will:

Hence, it is unto remission of sins and eternal life and unto a safeguard for body and soul and for such as partake worthily thereof and with faith. But for such as receive unworthily and without faith it is unto chastisement and punishment. It is just as the Lords death has become life and immortality for those who believe, whereas for those who do not and for who killed the Lord it is unto chastisement and eternal punishment.[12]

We must, therefore, not confuse worthiness to communion with merit, for in doing so we actually risk partaking of communion unworthily, with the wrong intention. We must be willing to be transformed by grace; we must seek it, as needed, as our spiritual medicine, finding it can heal us from our spiritual infirmity. But if we are to be healed, we must follow the spiritual prescription which is given with it. We must turn away from the path of sin and instead follow the path of love. Then we can truly find the eucharist transform us as intended, helping us to become what we eat, and so to be a part of the body of Christ, not just spiritually, but also in the world at large. And so, Bulgakov said, one way we to understand the eucharist as the sacrament of sacraments is to see how it makes us the body of Christ, that is, the church: Thus, originally, in the apostolic age, the Divine Eucharist as the basis of all the sacraments was exclusively that which it is as the realization of the body of the Church as the body of Christ. Its essential character was not hierarchical but koinonic. [13]

If we look to the world in bitterness and hate, under the mantle of sin, we take sin upon ourselves and risk the spiritual death which comes with it; of course, if we change, if we get out of the rut which hate wants to keep us in, if we open up to grace and seek to be transformed by it, even our previous unworthiness can be forgiven and we can receive the graces which we are meant to have when we partake of communion. Thus, we must remember, while all sacraments can find themselves subverted by our will, they are meant to offer us various graces to help us in our lives and our focus should be on the gift which is being offered. This is especially true with the eucharist, for it is the sacrament of sacraments, the sacrament of Christ, and through it we can receive all that is meant for us in all the sacraments, albeit in a special and unique way. For if Christ heals our infirmities in all the sacraments, nevertheless he does it most greatly in this sacrament, in which he is completely contained in his divinity and humanity and grace. [14]

[1] St. Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord. Trans. Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski, OP (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 2017), 31.

[2] St. Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, 32.

[3] St. Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, 61.

[4] Hugh of Saint Victor, On the Sacraments. Trans. Roy J. Deferrari (Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America, 1951), 304.

[5] St. Ambrose, The Sacraments, in Theological and Dogmatic Works. trans. Roy J Deferrari, PhD (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 306.

[6] Peter Lombard, The Sentences. Book 4: On the Doctrine of Signs. trans. Giulio Silano (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2010), 65 [ bk. iv., dist. xii, c. 6].

[7] St. John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith in Writings. Trans. Frederic H. Chase, Jr (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1958), 360.

[8] Robert of Melun, Questions on the Divine Page, in Interpretation of Scripture: Practice. Trans. Franklin T. Harkins. Ed. Frans van Leiere and Franklin T. Harkins (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015), 302.

[9] St. Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, 32-3.

[10] St. Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, 62.

[11] St. Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, 33.

[12] St. John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith, 358.

[13] Sergius Bulgakov, Bride of the Lamb. Trans. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002), 287.

[14] St. Albert the Great, On the Body of the Lord, 299.

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The Eucharist: The Sacrament Of Sacraments | Henry Karlson - Patheos

Elon Musk thinks were living in the Matrix. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, games will eventually be indistinguishable from reality, he told Joe Rogan in 2018, before somehow concluding: Were most likely in a simulation. In an interview with NBC, Neil deGrasse Tyson said theres better than 50-50 odds that Musk is right. I wish I could summon a strong argument against it, but I can find none.

This belief, known as simulation theory, is increasingly common in elite circles. These are the same intellectuals who plead the Fifth when asked to define the word woman. The brain-trust responsible for training our political, military, economic, scientific, and cultural elites think were living in a huge video game where men get pregnant and women have penises (get over it, cishets).

Meanwhile, the rest of us are asking, When did smart people get so stupid?

Actually, this is nothing new. Modern historians have tried to convince us that the last four hundred years saw pure Reason overthrow the tyranny of myth and superstition, but in fact the most benighted habits we associate with the distant past are all the result of progress.

We say the Reformation freed Europes conscience from bishops and kings, yet the divine right of kings evolved in England beginning in the reign of Henry VIII and only spread to France about a century later. Meanwhile, witch burning (or hanging) was extremely rare in medieval Europe. The majority of witches were executed in Lutheran Germany and Puritan Massachusetts.

We say the Renaissance banished squalid theologies in favor of science and philosophy, yet virtually all the great men of that age, like Francis Bacon and Paracelsus, dabbled in ritual magic, astrology, and alchemy. After all, mans power over nature seemed limitless. Why shouldnt he be able to change the weather or read the stars?

As Dominic Green observes in his new book The Religious Revolution, the late 1800s saw a renewed interest in the occult, for all the same reasons. Given all the recent advances in human knowledge, from Darwinstheory of evolution to Marxs scientific socialism, traditional Christianity was clearly untenable. Meanwhile, imperial adventures in Asia and Africa were exposing the West to bold new ways of thinking.

Enter the Theosophical Society. Its foundress, Helena Blavatsky, blended Western science with Eastern religion to create a scientific spiritualism. During her seances, ancient Hindu priests and Renaissance Neoplatonists would appear to her and dictate her books. Ideals and faith have been lost almost everywhere, Madame Blavatsky observed. People in our century demand a scientific bulwark, scientific proofs of the spirits immortality. Ancient esoteric science will give it to them.

From 1875 until the middle of the 20th century, everyone who was anyone read Blavatsky. Really, the modern world is a Theosophical conspiracy. The movements for womens suffrage, animal rights, trade unions, vegetarianism, homeopathic medicine, and cremation were all dominated by Theosophists. Adherents rose to the highest levels of politics (Henry Wallace), the military (Abner Doubleday), literature (Arthur Conan Doyle), music (Gustav Mahler), psychology (William James), and science (Thomas Edison). Even Gandhi was a Theosophist. He famously kept a picture of Blavatskys successor, Annie Besant, next to his portrait of Jesus.

For the global elite, this was all perfectly normaluntil it wasnt. When Theosophy fell out of vogue, it went right down the memory-hole.

This is the real history of the last four centuries. Its a cycle of bizarre fads. First some real advance in human knowledgesome major discovery or rediscovery, it might be chemistry, or India, or computersthen the most powerful members of society decide that this knowledge actually explains the entire cosmos. Suddenly, computers are literallyeverything. Finally, the fad becomes gauche, as all fads do. Historians kindly wipe the records, to help the elites save face. Then a new fad begins, and the whole cycle starts over again.

As G.K. Chesterton (almost) said, When a man stops believing in God he doesnt then believe in nothing, he believes anythingbut, ah! I can already see eyes beginning to roll.

Chesterton belongs to a group of writers I call the Greater Inkling movement. Its members are well-known Christians like George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Theyre known for their gentleness, their wit, and their huge powers of imagination. Each enjoys a large popular following, sometimes because of their Christianity but just as often despite it.

And yet Inklingism has its critics, especially among elite Christians and conservatives. I dont use the word elite derisively here, or anywhere else. I mean educated, cultivated, well-informed, and well-to-do, the sort who read magazines like The American Conservative.

They say the Inklings are for hobbit-fanciers and tweed fetishists. Tolkien and MacDonald are all right for children. So is Lewis, of course. Kids love his Narnia books. Mere Christianity has helped some people come to Jesus, which is a good thing. Same with Chestertons Orthodoxy. And his Father Brown is up there with Sherlock Holmes and Poirot. (Well, Poirot, anyway.) Still, fairy tales and detective stories wont save Western civilization.

Theyre just a little too cozy, too detached from the modern world. How could they ever speak to an age formed by Marx, Freud, Bernays, Sartre, Foucault, Steinem? What do they have to say about transgenderism, or globalism, or critical race theory? A few clever anagrams; a smattering of novels. Their philosophy, like their fiction, is escapist.

Inklingism would hold that theres nothing unique, or even especially interesting, about the age we now live in, nothing special about the heretics and heathens were contending with. The genius of the Inklings was their refusal to indulge the modern pretense. They refused to act as if the advent of the modern world changed everything, because it didnt. In fact, one of the main problems with modernity is that its so self-consciously modern. The beauty of being a Christian, as my old friend Thomas Howard once said, is that one is free from ever having to temporize.

The Inklings refused to temporize, which is why they continue to win more converts than any evangelist alive today. They refused to either accommodate modernity or (whats equally dangerous) to define themselves against it. They remained absolutely fixed, not on fashionable errors, but on permanent truths.

And what truths are those? Its what we might call Christian realism, which boils down to three main principles.

Put simply, realism refers to followers of Plato and Aristotle. Theyre a minority in ancient Rome, though their numbers include great thinkers like Cicero. Realism only becomes the dominant Western philosophy during the Christian era, thanks to the efforts of figures like Justin Martyr, Augustine, Boethius, and Anselm. Realists fight among themselves a bit during the Middle Ages, with some (like Aquinas) favoring Aristotle and others (like Bonaventure) favoring Plato. But later Christian realists like Erasmus, Pascal, and Newman rarely keep up the old divisions.

Realism was originally used in reference to the problem of universals. Im using it a little more broadly here, because Christians have lately found themselves defending commonsense things against pointless doubts. We believe the external world is quite realunlike Descartes, with his radical doubts. We believe that a rose is really beautifulunlike Hume, who thought beauty is simply a matter of taste. We believe that some practices, like pedophilia, are truly evilunlike Foucault, who thought of them as mere taboos. We believe that God is realunlike Marx, who called Him a delusion, or Freud, who said He was a complex. And we believe Hes very much aliveunlike Nietzsche, whos quite dead.

We may be wrong. But if we are, then so were the vast majority of human beings throughout history. Common sense may be wrong, but isnt it funny that, especially in modern times, Christians are the great champions of common sense? Before the year 2010, it would have been obvious to 100 percent of human beings that men cannot get pregnant. And yet the only real pushback against transgenderism today comes from Christians.

Chesterton and Lewis were the great representatives of Christian realism in the 20th century. They have no equal in English or any other language. They are easily as intelligent as any German historicist or French existentialistas shown by their absolute refusal to credit either historicism or existentialism. Their writing seems simplistic, in part because it contrasts so sharply with the fatuous obscurantism that dominated philosophy of that era, but also because most of the heavy lifting had been done centuries before. They refused to reinvent the wheel.

So why is Christian realism so unpopular? Why does our intelligentsia keep popping out these ridiculous new errors, rather than accepting the plain truth of Christian realism? Lets ask Chesterton. Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, he said. It has been found difficult and not tried. (Well, he didnt quite say it. But its the kind of thing he wouldve said.) Youve probably come across this quote on the internet, and you probably thought it was trite. Actually, though, hes right.

None of the reasons that historians give for the decline of Christianity hold water. The Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the World Warsnone of these have made Christianity less plausible. Anselms ontological arguments and Aquinass logical arguments havent been refuted. Hardly anyone has even tried. Theres been some sort of unspoken pact, a silent conspiracy, to ignore all Western letters from the death of Epictetus to the birth of Descartes.

As a matter of fact, the conspiracy used to be rather outspoken. During the Renaissance, the word dunce was coined as a play on the name of John Duns Scotus. Needless to say, Scotus wasnt a dunce. Hes the only medieval philosopher who might be considered Aquinass equal. Hes certainly the only one better versed in Greek philosophy. But he was extremely dense, had no ear for good prose, andworst of allfelt the Thomists had put a little too much stock in human reason.

For this reason, Scotus enjoyed a reappraisal in the last century thanks to philosophers like Heidegger who challenged modern philosophys deep rationalism. But during the Renaissance, that rationalism was just coming into its own. So, of course, Scotus had to go. Rather than refute Scotusprobably because they couldntthe great Renaissance humanists just mocked and forgot him.

Yes, Chesterton was right. Weve succumbed to a fallacy: the belief that, if a thing has been defeated, it has been disproved. And even then he goes too far. Christianity hasnt been defeatedChristianity itself hasnt even been attacked. No one has the guts.

Man is fickle, especially in religion. I find a mere change of scene always has a tendency to decrease my faith at first, Lewis admits. God is less credible when I pray in a hotel bedroom than when I am in College. Every sincere Christian knows exactly what he means.

Thats why the Inklings were so fond of fairy tales and fantasies. Men have always used grand narrativesmyths, legends, and epicsto communicate fundamental truths. Look at the Bible, or the Bhagavad Gita, or the Iliad, or the Aeneid, or Beowulf, or LeMorte dArthur. They combine morals and moods, working on both sides of our brain at the same time.

The usual complaint about these kinds of stories is that theyre childish. Theyre too black-and-white. They lack moral nuance. But thats the whole point: theres no such thing as moral nuance. Theres moral confusion, of course. Theres moral cowardice. But in the final analysis theres no real gray area between right and wrong. If a woman flirts with a married man at the bar, he only has one option: walk away. It doesnt matter if the woman is beautiful, or if his marriage is loveless, or if his wife is a cheater. And if on his way home he finds a woman being attacked in a dark alley, he only has one option: get involved. It doesnt matter how many attackers there are or how the woman is dressed. As a man, he has a duty to defend the defenseless.

Of course, these other factors (the cheating wife, the number of attackers) make it a little more understandable if he does the wrong thing. But explanations arent the same as excuses. Right is still right and wrong is still wrong.

Modern men have trouble grasping these very simple truths thanks, in no small part, to highbrow novelists like Hemingway and Lawrence. Thats why we need childrens fables, like the Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane, wrote Chesterton. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.

To this day, the great majority of Americans claim to believe in God. And yet we take no interest in Him. Im sure its always been that way. A society can be religious even if its members arent especially pious. But piety was still held up as an ideal. It wasnt treated as a slightly embarrassing hobby like stamp-collecting.

If we were talking about an atheistic country, it would be another matter. Yet only 4 percent of Americans call themselves atheists. The rest of us should understand, at least vaguely, that our happiness has something to do with God. We should at least think about religion the way fat people think about exercise: Its probably good for us, and people swear they enjoy it (after a while), but I just cant be bothered. Again, this is an explanation but not an excuse.

Whats really tragic, though, is that our sloth doesnt lead to joy. It doesnt even lead to comfort. It leads to misery. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humor, and frankness, Lewis observes. It has nothing to do with Christian or unchristian: For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary.

And as Cardinal Newman (the Grandfather of Inklingism) pointed out, whats true of the lower goods is also true of the higher goods. The very notion of being religious implies self-denial, he said, because by nature we do not love religion. Here we come back to Chestertons point, that were too lazy to be Christian.

Still, the point remains. Any believerhowever vague his beliefsmust agree, at least in theory, that there can be no happiness without God. Here, too, Lewis put it best:

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

Really, though, I think the reason so many of us reject the Inklings is because theyre not political enough. They dont have much to say about national conservatism, or Catholic integralism, or any of the other isms popping up on the right like mushrooms.

But this, too, was intentional. Lewis, for his part, refused to read newspapers. He said it was how he kept unspotted from the world. (Thats a reference to the Epistle of St. James: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.)

Chesterton was even more forthright. We tend to make politics too important, he declared. We tend to forget how huge a part of a mans life is the same under a Sultan and a Senate, under a Nero or St. Louis. The real danger to the modern news junkieespecially if he calls himself a Christianis that hes apt to forget whats really wrong with the world. Ill give you a hint: its not Trump or Biden. Its not Russia or NATO. Its not evangelical Christians or secular atheists. No: What is wrong with the world is the devil, Chesterton wrote, and what is right with it is God.

We dont like people who talk this way. The beauty of politics is that Im always the hero. (At least, Im never the villain.) Its always the socialists/fascists/libtards/Trumpkins who need to be sorted out, not me. In religion, its just the opposite. Christianity is always banging on about sina fact as practical as potatoes, as G.K. called it. And if the problem is sinners, then the problem is me. Again, we turn to Chesterton: The answer to the question, What is Wrong? is, or should be, I am wrong.

Once you start to digest that fact, you also begin to see that even our political problems arent really political. Take abortion. Pro-lifers say that if Americans would only follow the science, they would see that life begins at conception. But everyone knows that an unborn baby is alive, at least in the way a dog or a fly or a shrub is alive. They just dont believe that his life is worth as much as an adults.

Actually, the Christian idea that we attain full personhood at the moment of conception is a minority view in history. Most cultures have thought of weak things (including babies) as disposable. That only changes when the God of Israel reveals to His people that man is the imago Dei. Every life is therefore equally and infinitely precious. For you created my inmost being, wrote King David; you knit me together in my mothers womb.

At bottom, the reason abortion is so prevalent is because we dont value human beings as we ought to. But this cant be fixed through magazine articles or op-eds. It takes a conversion of the heart.

Or take same-sex marriage. I think most of us would agree that Obergefell v. Hodges marked the end of social conservatives sway in the GOP. But even before 2015, it was clearly a spent force, and the traditional marriage it defended was a farce. There was only ever one real argument against gay marriage, and it was the one they refused to make. It went like this:

Gay rights activists claim that two men can love each other just as much as a man and a woman. And they may be right! But thats irrelevant, because marriage isnt about love. The reason marriage exists as a civil institution is because, once upon a time, the West was Christian. We believed that sex was only appropriate in the context of a lifelong union between a man and a woman. This is the Christian virtue of chastity. The Christian princes of Europe enshrined that ideal in law by declaring that sexual activity was prohibited except between couples that had received the Churchs sacrament of holy matrimony.

The law was rarely enforced. Yet, as we know, virtue is necessary for human flourishing. Vice can destroy a mans life; it can also bring whole civilizations to ruin. The State therefore has a vested interest in promoting chastity. Civil society can only exist insofar as men restrain their libidos and abstain from licentiousness. Thats why, until man is made perfect, hell always need traditional marriage.

That argument is as good today as it was in 13th-century France. But in order to make it, conservatives would also have to take a stand against divorce, pornography, and possibly even contraception. That would be hugely unpopular, even with most Christians, which is why they didnt do it. Instead, they muttered something about men marrying dogs and then breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court rendered the whole thing moot.

The point is that the Christian princes were right. Chastity is worth promoting, because unchastity is a threat, not only to ourselves and our neighbors, but to the entire social order. But that means we cant just blame the destruction of the family on the Democrats, or the LGBT lobby, or even the Sexual Revolution. A little bit of the blame lies with everyone whos taken advantage of our new permissive society. Its also my fault. And its probably yours, too.

Some call this escapist. Really, I think it is the political men who are the escapists. Just one more podcast, one more op-ed, one more conferenceOne more meme, one more Facebook post, one more Twitter brawlOne more electionThen everything will be put right.

Sorry, but it doesnt work that way. You have to put it right, and start by putting yourself right. Thats the message of the Inklings. Its not escapism: its Christian realism. It doesnt ask us to stick our head in the sand, but in the clouds. After all, as Lewis says,

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth thrown in: aim at earth and you will get neither.

Around the year A.D. 33, Roman authorities executed a Jewish preacher. Three centuries later, the Emperor officially declared Him to be the Incarnate God. Today, about one of every four human beings worship that preacher. Yet we say religion is impractical, and then buy a Tesla. That must be the devils greatest trick.

Michael Warren Davis is the author of The Reactionary Mind (Regnery, 2021) and The Times Are Wretched (Sophia Institute Press, 2024). Subscribe to his newsletter, The Common Man, on Substack.

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