Superstition is never a legitimate means for
achieving anything, including
health, because it is not really a means at all.

Superstition and Unscientific Medicine: A Thomistic Analysis

By Kevin G. Rickert

 

A few years ago I was talking with my little niece on the front porch of her house; trying to make conversation, I pointed across the street and asked her, “what kind of church is that?” She said “that’s the kind of church where they don’t let kids go to the doctor.” She was right, of course; it was the Church of Christian Science.

Most of us have not given much thought to the Christian Scientists and their refusal to accept medical treatment. We think of them as a small fringe group, a few extremists who do not share our enlightened view of the modern world. It is easy to point the finger at others and think we are above that kind of thing. The sad truth is that, for many of us, a similar error has crept into our own set of beliefs. When it comes to health, it is easy to find all kinds of confused and ill-founded ideas—ideas that involve dangers to our physical, as well as our spiritual, well-being.

As a child, I heard more than a few homilies on the first commandment. I remember the priest warning us to search our lives to make sure we were not worshipping false gods. The priest challenged me to stretch my concept of false gods to include such things as money, pleasure, consumer goods, and the like. Nobody I knew worshipped false gods in the literal sense. The goal of these homilies was to purify our faith and redirect it more clearly to the one true God.

When we turn our attention to the wide array of superstitious beliefs tied up with health care, we find an area of confusion ripe for the same kind of correction. My guess is that nobody (hopefully) in my church is playing with ouija boards or consulting psychics, but this does not mean that we are all free from superstition. If we look carefully at superstitious health practices, we will see an opportunity once again to purify our faith and redirect it more clearly to the one true God.

Throughout the centuries, there have been swindlers who peddle charms and snake oil to the unwary. In the 1800s, peddlers sold necklaces with a piece of uranium to be worn around the neck, supposedly to cure a variety of diseases. Today, with the growing interest in alternative medicine, 1 we find people engaging in a wide array of unscientific medicine, from untested and unregulated herbs 2 to new-age crystals, 3 from homeopathy 4 to energy healing. 5 In the 1800s, people had no way of knowing the benefits or dangers of proposed cures other than the testimony of their friends, but in our day, there is no need to accept these kinds of untested remedies.

One of the greatest advances in modern science is the refinement of the scientific method itself, the method that allows us to test hypotheses systematically and determine, with a significantly increased degree of certainty, whether or not an alleged cause truly is a cause of a particular effect. With the advent of controlled clinical studies, medical science is able to determine, with a much greater degree of accuracy, the level of efficacy and safety of alleged cures. Admittedly the scientific method of induction only gives varying degrees of certainty, and this accounts for failures and successive changes in medical theory; nevertheless, theories that are tested by the scientific method are immeasurably more reliable than those that are not.

For St. Thomas Aquinas, science (even though it was rather crude in his day) was the key to understanding superstition. Superstitious belief, according to St. Thomas, is a false belief about ordinary natural events, a belief that is contrary to what we know scientifically. For example, if I believe that blowing on dice before rolling them will help me to get double sixes, this belief is superstitious, because there is no reason to think that there is any genuine cause/effect relationship between my breath and the way the dice will land. Likewise, if I believe that chiropractic treatment will cure my cancer, even though there is no scientific evidence that it can produce that effect, I am making an act of faith, not in God, but in a chiropractor or chiropractic treatment. 6

In the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas draws a distinction between superstition and “tempting God.” Those who tempt God refuse to employ ordinary means; instead they demand that God cure by miraculous intervention something that he would normally cure by natural means. This is the approach of the Christian Scientists. Instead of using ordinary medical means to treat a malady, they put God on the spot and insist that he display his divine power in an extraordinary way. 7 According to St. Thomas, “…temptation of God consists in omitting to do what one can in order to escape from danger, and relying on the assistance of God alone.” 8 Here one can think of Christ’s encounter with the devil on the parapet of the temple. When Satan asks Jesus to throw himself down and rely on miraculous intervention, our Lord’s response is decisive: “you shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” 9

For St. Thomas, superstition is a worse sin than tempting God. Tempting God involves a misplaced faith in regard to God, but superstition involves a misplaced faith in some creature, for example, a statue, a fraudulent medical practitioner, an untested herb, a crystal, or some other form of “snake oil.” Those who buy into these superstitions create for themselves a realm of false gods.

At this point someone may object that this line of reasoning is going too far. How can being conned by a seller of snake oil be related to idolatry? For St. Thomas, there are various kinds of superstition, but all of them share a common element: each involves some form of irrational belief contrary to the virtue of religion; each consists of some sort of misplaced faith.

One kind of superstition, according to St. Thomas, is divination, which can be found in three forms. 10 The first form of divination consists of invoking the demons directly. This may be associated with ouija boards, Tarot cards, or other practices common to witchcraft. In the second form of divination, however, the superstitious person simply observes the shape or random movement of things and interprets them to have some further significance. St. Augustine gives some examples of this form of divination:

…[to attribute meaning to] the twitching of a limb;… to go back to bed if you happen to sneeze while putting on your shoes; to return home if you trip while going forth; when the rats have gnawed a hole in your clothes, to fear superstitiously a future evil rather than to regret the actual damage. 11

Here the superstitious person attributes a hidden meaning to an observable chance event. In the third form of divination, the person does not just passively observe things but actually performs useless actions in order to discover the occult (i.e., the unknown). St. Thomas gives examples of drawing lots, throwing dice, or opening a book and observing what first catches the eye.

Nobody is suggesting that playing with dice or selecting a volunteer by lots is always superstitious or immoral. These random actions are often chosen precisely because they are known to be random. In other words, we often choose them because their randomness provides a good way to be fair and to remove the possibility of favoritism. These kinds of actions only become superstitious when they are used in the opposite way, i.e., when meaningless random occurrences are interpreted as meaningful. 12 When intelligent beings surrender to superstition, they invite confusion, falsity, and deception to take the place of wisdom. In this way, a gift of the Holy Spirit (wisdom) is replaced by a gift of the unholy spirit (deception).

Some people speak of alternative medicine as opposed to traditional medicine, but in reality, there are only two main kinds of medicine: medicine that is evidence-based, and medicine that is not. The accepted scientific procedure is that the burden of proof falls on those making a claim for a new cure. Real scientists who discover a potential cure are eager to formulate rigorous tests, which will prove their theory to the scientific community. Non-scientific medical practitioners, on the other hand, refuse to submit to controlled experiments, and many hold theories that have already been disproved, or that contradict established physical laws. Some of these people know that their remedy does not work, but many who are ignorant of the scientific method actually believe that their unscientific method works.

Ordinarily, when a drug is proposed for FDA approval, it is subjected to a long series of scientific tests (some say too long—some not long enough) to see, first if it truly is effective and, second if the benefits outweigh the risks. This process of submitting to the scrutiny of the scientific method is key in separating legitimate evidence-based medicine from superstition. What the scientific community is looking for is hard evidence that the desired effects can actually be produced (and re-produced) by natural causes in a carefully monitored setting where other factors can be eliminated as potential causes. Superstitious remedies are those that fail to produce this kind of verification.

Very often defenders of unproven remedies will point to the failures of medical treatment as a defense of their conversion to “alternative medicine.” This stems from a misunderstanding of the probabilistic nature of medical treatments. Often physicians will choose between a variety of cures, any one of which has only a probability (e.g., 60 - 70%), rather than a certainty, of success. Medicine often involves calculated risks and dangers, and often the protocol requires a process of trial and error. In cases like this, it is unreasonable to abandon the scientific method because of a failure and turn to an “alternative method” that has no established probability of success.

Some turn to “alternative medicine” as a reaction to poor treatment by incompetent physicians. Doctors, of course, make mistakes, and some fail to properly employ proven medical methods, but horror stories about malpractice say nothing about medical science itself. They give reasons to choose a doctor carefully, but they do not give reasons to abandon the proven techniques of scientific medicine.

In some cases, the fault of physicians comes from their own use of unproven remedies. Some trained physicians, and other licensed health care providers, following their instincts, will abandon reason and fall into superstition themselves. Once again, this says nothing against scientifically verified medical techniques that physicians should be using. It speaks, instead, against the pseudo-scientific methods to which superstitious people are turning.

Contrary to the teachings of Christian Science, Catholic moral teaching requires that we use ordinary means to save a life or to treat a malady. When a person is confronted with a life threatening condition, or some less serious illness (especially a communicable disease), which can be easily treated by ordinary means, there is a moral obligation to do so. Extraordinary means, on the other hand, are never required but instead remain optional. 13 Unscientific medical cures are neither ordinary nor extraordinary, because they are not real means at all. As such, they are neither required nor permitted. The main problem with these kinds of “cures” is that they don’t really work; they are irrational, and as such they are contrary to the natural law.

St. Thomas dedicates one article in the Summa Theologiae specifically to the question of various modes of health care. He asks “Whether observances directed to the alteration of bodies, as for the purpose of acquiring health or the like, are Unlawful.” 14 The answer to this question depends primarily on the natural efficacy of the means. In the body of the article, he says the following:

In things done for the purpose of producing some bodily effect we must consider whether they seem able to produce that effect naturally: for if so it will not be unlawful to do so, since it is lawful to employ natural causes in order to produce their proper effects. But, if they seem unable to produce those effects naturally, it follows that they are employed for the purpose of producing those effects, not as causes but only as signs, so that they come under the head of compact by tokens entered into with the demons. 15

One can produce an effect either by natural means or supernatural means. With the sacraments, a human being puts forth a visible sign, and the divine efficacy produces the spiritual result. In this case, the cause/effect relationship is not empirically verifiable, because the effect (grace) is not directly observable. In medicine, on the other hand, a human being employs a means known to produce a given result by the ordinary efficacy of nature. Here the cause/effect relationship is empirically verifiable. We do what we know will work (or what we reasonably expect to work in a significant number of cases). When it comes to superstitious medicine, however, a human being employs a pseudo-means, which has no efficacy by nature to produce the desired result. This irrational and misplaced faith is seen by St. Thomas as an invitation to the demons and the deceptions they foster. Superstition then is seen as a kind of an anti-sacrament. Since a superstitious observance is not reasonably believed to produce the desired effect by the ordinary workings of nature, it becomes a sign—a sign of faith in hidden (occult) forces, 16 a sign of gullibility, a sign of openness to deception, and these are the spiritual results that the demons desire.

At this point, one may object that St. Thomas has gone too far. Is he really suggesting that I am entering into league with the demons when I take some Echinacea, just because we have no conclusive evidence that it can cure my cold? 17 The answer to this question, of course, depends. It depends on the level of knowledge that we have about the efficacy of the supposed cure, and it depends, perhaps even more, on the level of faith that I place in the supposed cure.

If I try some herbal concoction for a minor malady, along with a healthy dose of skepticism, just to please a friend, there may not be any superstition involved at all (on my part, anyway). If I volunteer to test an experimental remedy for the advancement of science, assuming the remedy can reasonably be expected to produce the desired effects without excessive risks, the danger of superstition is removed. On the other hand, if I put my full faith in a pseudo-scientific medical practitioner, to treat a serious illness, such as diabetes, if I turn my back on the knowledge available through the best science of the day, I fall into the trap of deception and error. In this case, I subject my mind to deception, and at the same time, I neglect my obligation to employ ordinary means; in so doing, I subject my body to illness and my loved ones to potential hardships. The physical consequences that I receive may be the same as those that the Christian Scientists receive, but the spiritual toll is much greater.

One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome when dealing with devotees of superstitious medicine is that they actually believe, contrary to observable facts and often with a steadfast faith, that the alleged cure really works. How is it possible that these otherwise intelligent people are able to fall prey to this particular form of deception?

Quite a few people never learned about the scientific method. They see no difference between a few alleged success stories and a randomized, controlled, double-blind study. Most people are unaware that a so called cure may be simply the result of the placebo effect, which can produce positive results (depending on the malady) as high as twenty to thirty percent (higher when both the patient and care giver have faith in the cure, and even higher when the maladies are largely psycho-somatic).

Most people are easily confused by statistics and fail to recognize that many diseases are self-curative, and a large percentage of patients will recover all by themselves no matter what “remedy” they are using. They fail to realize that, in these cases, the so called remedy has nothing to do with the person’s recovery. Unlike real medical science, non-scientific practitioners do not keep complete and detailed records of all relevant variables (potential causes) and outcomes. They rarely refer to legitimate scientific studies, and when they do, they often misinterpret the results, twisting them to serve their own agenda. Instead of relying on sound scientific studies, they offer anecdotal success stories. The problem with this kind of “evidence” is that it does not actually prove that the alleged cure is the cause of the healing. When these so-called medical practitioners tell us about the cases that have improved, they fail to acknowledge the patients who did not improve or who became worse. Like obsessive gamblers, they brag of their successes, but never keep track of, or admit, their failures.

Sometimes gullibility is a result of wishful thinking—the same kind of self-delusion that makes people think they have a greater chance of winning the lottery than getting struck by lightning. This kind of wishful thinking is often elevated in desperate patients who are beaten down by illness. People with incurable diseases are often prime targets for pseudo-scientific methods. Sometimes religious people are drawn to the occult nature of superstitious medicine, because it seems to be a spiritual approach. They may know that there is no natural efficacy to their superstition, but they turn to it anyway, because it makes them feel spiritually alive and spiritually in tune.

In a related article on fortune telling, St. Thomas touches upon this question of why people fall prey to superstition. For some people, it seems obvious that superstitious beliefs have some truth to them since everybody has some experience in which these kinds of things actually work. This is the persistent mindset of those who put their faith in unscientific methods. “I’ve seen it work. So-and-so swears by it…” Never mind the fact that these untested remedies may only appear to work based on a statistically insignificant number of alleged success stories. On one side, we have superstitious opinion based on anecdotal “evidence,” and on the other, we have facts based on controlled studies. One side must yield to the other, but the superstitious believers stick firmly to their position: “damn the evidence, full steam ahead.” Why do they do this? In his answer to the objection, St. Thomas says the following:

That men have at first experienced a certain degree of truth in these observances is due to chance. But afterwards when a man begins to entangle his mind with observances of this kind, many things occur in connection with them through the trickery of the demons, so that men, through being entangled in these observances, become yet more embroiled in the manifold snares of a pernicious error, as Augustine says. 18

Whether or not modern theologians will agree with St. Thomas about the trickery of the demons as a cause of confusion, the results are the same. Without reference to the demons, we can understand St. Thomas’s answer on the purely natural level. What we see in cases where people are deeply entangled in superstition is that they are sucked in by a seemingly impressive set of chance events and eventually reach a point at which it becomes difficult to see the relevant points.

Of course there are some people whose gullibility is limited to one or two unproven remedies, and they try these placebo treatments, along with a willingness to employ ordinary medical means when necessary. Some, however, become much more deeply devoted. Both are superstitious, but as the misplaced faith deepens, some people become so entangled in the deception that they are unable to think logically. They refuse to consider the voice of reason. Their passion overtakes their rational nature, because their own wishful thinking has pre-selected a conclusion.

This is what Aristotle is talking about when he says that a man of passion is not ready to learn about politics. 19 People like this cannot learn, because their enthusiasm overrides their logic. Their push for action comes before any rational plan for action. In the case of those who superstitiously cling to pseudo-scientific cures, their passion for the desired conclusion (for the triumph of the unscientific remedy) trumps any consideration of logic and evidence. Like older children clinging to a belief in Santa Claus, they willingly enter the darkness, shutting their eyes and ears tightly, so as not to upset the magic.

St. Thomas is concerned that meddling in superstition can progress into more serious forms of deception. From the point of view of contemporary psychology, many of the conditions that used to be attributed to the demons can also be explained in terms of psychosis. It is interesting to note that some of the traits that are common in serious devotees of quackery (e.g., occult knowledge and theories of conspiracy) are found also in paranoid schizophrenics. Strong devotion to unscientific medicine is often rooted in some kind of conspiracy theory. According to this view, the whole medical field is either deceived or deceptive. The best, most intelligent, well trained doctors in the world either do not know about the alleged cure, or they are covering it up. They want to keep people sick in order to protect their own profit. Like serious mental patients, the cult of unscientific medicine embraces a kind of Gnostic elitism, which suggests that nobody in the whole world, except their little enlightened group, knows the truth.

Granted, some corrupt doctors may prescribe unneeded medications or perform unneeded operations simply to line their pockets, but it is unreasonable to think that the whole medical field is cooperating in a conspiracy to promote this kind of fraud. Many in the medical field (e.g., professors of medicine and editors of prestigious medical journals) are not paid in such a way as to profit by the sale of drugs or the performance of medical procedures. It would be cynical and delusional to believe that all the doctors involved in western medicine would abandon legitimate cures that might save their own lives, and the lives of their loved ones, in order to promote a world-wide conspiracy simply for the sake of profit.

Someone may point out that there are medical doctors involved in abortions and euthanasia, and many more who prescribe contraceptives, which are known to have detrimental effects. Medical science, as a whole, however, is not implicated in a conspiracy simply because some (in the case of contraceptives, most) practitioners are willing to employ unethical procedures.

While some medical practitioners may lie about the true nature of abortion (saying that the fetus is just a lump of tissue or that the procedure is safe), it is medical science itself that provides the truth about this procedure. It is medical science that reveals the unique genetic makeup of the fetus, a key to identifying the fetus as a distinct individual of the human species.

Most medical doctors are blind to the moral dangers of contraception, but medical science itself is not objectively wrong about the physical dangers of the pill. It is medical science that reveals the long and detailed list of warnings included in each package of oral contraceptives. Doctors promote contraception for an intelligible, although morally illegitimate, reason: the demand for it is so high that the pragmatic effectiveness is judged to outweigh the risks (of which medical science is aware). This is not a case of conspiracy. It is merely a case of misjudgment in the area of morals—an area in which medical doctors are not formally trained.

It is unreasonable to condemn the whole field of medical science because of the imprudent actions of individual physicians, but for Catholics, this accusation takes on a higher level of seriousness. Condemnation of medical science, as a whole, would imply a condemnation of the Catholic Church, which not only runs hospitals but also requires its members to use ordinary medical means to treat serious medical conditions.

The point that St. Thomas is making in his consideration of licit and illicit medical treatments is that superstition is never a legitimate means for achieving anything, including health, because it is not really a means at all. As such it is, to some degree, a participation in deception and a concession to the father of lies. When we think of the people in our own church who abandon medical science and put their faith in a clerk at the health food store (or a non-scientific medical practitioner), we may be inclined to look a little less judgmentally at the Church of Christian Science.

Following the example of St. Thomas, and many others in the history of the Church, we should strike continuously at the root of falsity and deception. Education in the legitimate methods of science, logic, and the philosophy of science will go a long way in the effort to expose the emptiness of superstition. In Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II recommends philosophy as an effective means of purifying the faith of superstitious elements. 20 If some of these elements remain after a healthy application of reason, perhaps they are the kind that will only be cast out by prayer and fasting.

ENDNOTES

1 Alexander Levitin reports that “58% of Americans were using CAM [complimentary and alternative medicine] in 1997, a percentage that has probably increased dramatically since. The total amount spent at that time for all CAM care was $21 billion for dietary supplements alone.” “Alternative Medicine,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 292.17 (November 3, 2004): 2154-2155.

2 While some herbal remedies actually have some efficacy, the vast majority remain untested and dubious with respect to efficacy as well as safety. Consumer Reports documents the unreliability of herbal remedies. E.g., some brands of Ginseng had a concentration of ginsenosides more than ten times that of other brands, and out of twelve brands of L-Carnitine, “a supplement crucial for people with a deadly metabolic disease…Two brands offered no detectable carnitine, and other’s pills varied containing from 20 percent to 85 percent of the labeled quantity.” Cf., “Herbal Roulette.” Consumer Reports, (Nov., 1995): 698-705.

3 For an overview of Crystal healing, cf., Judy Hall, The Crystal Bible: A Definitive Guide to Crystals (Cincinnati: Walking Stick Press, 2003).

4 The idea behind homeopathy is that substances that are harmful in larger quantities are curative in infinitesimal amounts. Some homeopathic remedies claim a dilution of 1 part original substance to 10 30 parts water. With one drop of the original substance, the water needed for this level of dilution would require a container fifty times the size of the earth. Cf. Stephen, Barret, M.D., The Vitamin Pushers (Amhurst: Prometheus Books, 1994), 171-172. “Since many homeopathic remedies contain no detectable amount of active ingredient, it is impossible to test whether they contain what their label says. …few have actually been tested and none has been proven effective.” Ibid.

5 For in-depth discussion of various forms of “energy healing,” cf. Lawrence E. Burkholder, “What is the ‘Subtle Energy’ in Energy Healing?” Perspectives in Science and Faith. 55.2 (June, 2003): 104-116.

6 Chiropractors claim to cure a wide range of medical conditions including cancer, epilepsy, leukemia, allergies, asthma, blindness, and many others. Cf., Samuel Hamola, D.C., Inside Chiropractic (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1999), 101-104.

7 From the point of view of the Christian Scientists, they are not neglecting ordinary natural means of healing; instead, they deny the efficacy of any such means. They hold that what we call “science” has no ability, per se, to produce a cure, and what we call “supernatural or miraculous healing” is the only legitimate way to produce a cure. The locus classicus for the principles of Christian Science is a book published by its founder in 1875: Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health: With a Key to Scriptures, (Boston: The Writings of Mary Baker Eddy, 2000), Chapter 6 gives an overview of this “divine science” of healing.

8 Aquinas, Thomas, St., Summa Theologiae (hereafter, ST). Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (San Francisco: Benzinger Brothers, 1947), II-II, 97sc.

9 Mathew, 4:7.

10 Aquinas, ST, II-II, 95, 3c.

11 Quoted by St. Thomas in ST, II-II, 96, 3sc.

12 St. Thomas is aware of examples in the Bible, in which holy men are reported to have cast lots. Nevertheless, he (and the Decretals of his day) warn against the practice (ST, II-II, 95, 8c). He admits that lots may be used for the distribution of earthly honors and possessions, as well as in cases of urgent necessity. Ibid.

13 For a discussion of ordinary versus extraordinary means, see John Balluff, “The Morality of Refusing Medical Treatments,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review (July, 2004): 44-48.

14 Aquinas, ST, II-II, 96, 2.

15 Aquinas, ST, II-II, 96, 2c.

16 Occult forces or energies, either do not exist, or they are hidden from ordinary people. Real scientists cannot detect them. They are allegedly known only by the privileged few, endowed with special knowledge. “VEM [Vital Energy Medicine] theoreticians…admit that subtle energy has only ever been detected through psychic means like clairvoyance, but never instruments.” Burkholder, 109.

17 Studies concerning Echinacea are conflicting and inconclusive. In a randomized, double-blind study of 148 college students, no difference was found between Echinacea and a placebo. Bruce Barrett, M.D., Ph.D., et al. “Treatment of the Common Cold with Unrefined Echinacea.” Annals of Internal Medicine, 137.12 (17 Dec. 2002): 939-946. However,… “A number of in vitro and animal studies have shown that Echinacea appears to increase immunologic activity…” Benjamin Kligler, M.D. “Echinacea,” American Academy of Family Physicians, 67.1 (Jan. 1, 2003): 77.

18 Aquinas, ST, II-II, 96, 3 ad2.

19 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, ed. Richard Mc Keon. (New York: Random house, 1941), 1095a5.

20 Cf. Fides et Ratio, (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998), #36-37.

 

Dr. Kevin G. Rickert teaches philosophy at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado. He received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of St. Thomas, Houston, Texas, in 1997. He lives in Denver with his wife and child. This is his first article in HPR.