Psychological Hurdles

In addition to headwinds posed by the medical establishment, the general public’s psychology serves as a barrier to a new medical paradigm. More specifically, the way people think often anchors them toward the prevailing and engrained belief systems.

So, before embarking on a journey to poke holes in the allopathic model, it’s first important to appropriately orient one’s mindset. This exercise aims to reduce the cognitive dissonance—emotional discomfort—that might accompany forthcoming discussions in this book.

1. Anomalies matter. An anomaly is something that doesn’t fit a worldview. It is an exception to the rule.36 Encountering even a single anomaly is problematic because it implies that the “rule” is incorrect, and a new one is needed. For instance, in 1900, one of the leading authorities in science, Lord Kelvin, declared that physics had largely figured things out, but there were two pesky “clouds”—unsolved mysteries—that remained. Upon further study, those clouds emerged into what are now known as relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Two anomalies resulted in drastic changes in scientific thinking.372. Correlation does not imply causation. If someone observes firefighters at the scene of a fire, there are multiple possible explanations. Without having any background knowledge, one might assume that the firefighters caused the fire. Alternatively, one might believe that the fire has a mystical ability to manifest humans out of thin air, so the firefighters are a by-product of the fire itself.38 Of course, these explanations miss the correct reason, which is that firefighters appeared on the scene in response to the fire. The point here is that when two things are related to one another, or if they appear at the same place and at the same time, the relationship between those things needs to be explored carefully. That is, the correlation of  those things doesn’t automatically imply that one caused the other. All possibilities need to be considered in order to accurately explain the relationship.

This point is critical in the exercise of uncovering the causes of illness. For instance, if people get sick in the same place around the same time, one can’t automatically conclude that a contagious virus or bacteria caused it. Maybe the sick people were exposed to a common environmental toxin; or consumed food or water that contained toxins; or were exposed to a similar form of radiation or a dangerous electromagnetic field; or were affected by a change in seasons, humidity, temperature, or barometric pressure; or they were under similar emotional distress; or they were exposed to some other factor, or factors, that could collectively contribute to illness. Critical thinking and open-mindedness are thus essential in the process of exploring causation.

3. Presuppositions often go unacknowledged. A presupposition is an assumption that underlies a belief system. If presuppositions aren’t examined, people end up believing things without knowing why they believe those things—other than “someone told me this was true.” Consider the six-feet-social-distancing requirement that dominated policy around the world during the COVID-19 era. In 2021, former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb revealed to CBS that the rule was “arbitrary.”39 Yet, how many people religiously followed the rule, trusting that it would save lives because people on television said so? The belief that “it must be true because an expert said it” is a logical fallacy known as “appeal to authority.” Cultlike superstitions are the result.

4. Science is an approach, not a religion. These days, the term science has come to refer to “anything that a mainstream scientist or doctor says.” Anthony Fauci, MD, a leading public medical figure in the United States, even declared in 2021 that attacks on him are “attacks on  science.”40 In reality, the scientific method is supposed to be an approach that welcomes endless challenges, whereas religious dogma is not allowed to be questioned. The institution of “science,” ironically, has become its own religion.

5. Consensus does not always mean “truth.” There is often a belief that if the majority of authority figures believe something, then it must be true—as if it’s not possible that so many prominent people could be wrong. Author Michael Crichton explained why this is such a problematic approach:

I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had….Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.41What’s to Come in This Book

With this contextual backdrop, I will move into an examination of flawed allopathic assumptions. Although I will discuss potential alternatives, they are presented in a hypothetical manner, and they need to be studied further.

 Said another way, the ideas I discuss in this book should not be taken as definitive proof of anything. But, taken together, the pieces of evidence suggest that the allopathic approach is misguided—not just a little bit misguided, but severely misguided. That means we need to be looking for new models if we want to achieve better health. Therefore, it’s necessary to consider ideas that are far outside of conventional thinking. And given how unhealthy modern society is, such a radical exercise is warranted.

Thus, the examination of the medical system in this book aspires to “start from scratch”—as if we know nothing about medicine and are exploring health and disease for the very first time. That entails asking the question: “How is it that we know the things we think we know? And how certain are we of those things?”

Keeping that approach in mind, in part I of this book I explore why allopathic assumptions need to be challenged. The first exploration, in chapter 1, takes a fresh look at HIV/AIDS. This serves as a template for later discussions about other diseases. Viruses—and how they are identified and “isolated”—are explored in chapter 2. The discussion walks through potential flaws built into the field of virology itself. Chapter 3 then sets the stage for a reevaluation of all allegedly infectious diseases by examining the logic needed to establish a cause of disease. That framework provides a backdrop with which to examine a variety of conditions commonly believed to be infectious, including polio, SARS, Spanish flu, avian flu, smallpox, chicken pox, hepatitis, rabies, and the Black Death (chapter 4). In the process of reviewing these illnesses, many questions about vaccines arise, which leads to a deeper analysis of their safety in chapter 5.

An End to UpsideDown Medicine

Contagion, Viruses, and Vaccines—and Why Consciousness Is Needed for a New Paradigm of Health

Mark Gober

In part II, I explore consciousness and why it’s a necessary component of a comprehensive medical model. In chapter 6, I dive into the nature of reality—and the human body’s place in it—which presents a fundamental challenge to allopathic beliefs. The resulting framework makes way for a discussion about consciousness, health, and disease in chapter 7. The topics covered are so far outside of traditional thinking that they make modern medicine seem highly primitive.

I conclude this book with a discussion of what’s at stake for all of us, in terms of our individual and collective freedom. The implications are immense.