Lecture
Это окончание невероятной информации про семиотика телесности.
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medical deities, whose priests they were, or in some other way proved their involvement in the world of spirits (genealogical claims, shamanic diseases, "marking" at birth or in childhood). Signs of receiving such abilities could be unusual events - a lightning strike, etc. Sometimes such "instructions" were specially staged: "apparitions of saints", letters from Mahatmas, allegedly received at the end of the 19th century. the famous adventurer Helena Blavatsky, "miraculous healings", etc. It was possible to sell one's soul to evil forces, receiving in exchange special qualities that allowed one to send illnesses or heal. This is how the skills of witches were explained in European mythology, and samovils in the folklore of the southern Slavs. Burtininks - sorcerers-healers in Lithuanian mythology - could not die without passing on their knowledge to another person.
Belonging to the “miracle” was supposed to be proved by periodic demonstrations of various unusual phenomena, often based on tricks or elementary fraud. It is precisely this that most likely ensures the astounding popularity, vitality and therapeutic efficacy of hypnotic methods, which is associated not so much with their substantial side, but with the accompanying mystic aura.
Another motif is also universal, explaining the special abilities of types of healers: the motive of esoteric, secret knowledge. This knowledge, ensuring the success of treatment, is available only to a narrow circle of people. There are many variants of esoteric knowledge: family, tribal, lost and newly found knowledge, knowledge of other civilizations.
Currently, such a justification of the herd is the most common. Since it is difficult to seriously substantiate one's divine origin, it can be argued that the doctor learned something from an inaccessible source, possesses very developed abilities “existing in the embryonic state of all people”, received as a result of a “lightning strike”, etc. On these grounds, various “Tibetan” and “Eastern” medicines are built, “Assyrian roots” of non-contact massage by Juna Davitash vili, witchcraft “in the fourth generation” by Y. Tarasov.
The modern version of esotericism is manifested in the strict prohibition of the therapeutic practice of persons who do not have a special certificate-diploma. In addition to the obvious financial background of this requirement and reasonable alienation from treatment of incompetent persons, it also contains a kind of sacralization of medical professions. This is proved, for example, by the myth of “clinical thinking”, which empowers experienced doctors with special knowledge and abilities (available only to a narrow circle of people) of penetrating into the essence of the disease. The esotericism of medical knowledge is emphasized by special clothing and the use of Latin - the language of the initiates, who must certify the depth, fundamental nature, subtlety and inaccessibility of the knowledge of the doctor. The most important is the degree of customer confidence in the proposed concept-myth. This opens up ample opportunities for manipulating trusting clients and creating a convincing image of a skilled healer. In the previous part of the work we have already stopped at the methods of including in the sacral or esoteric context, the use of the myth of “science”, various methods of proving our right of healing. The various scenery and staging effects semiologizing the very setting of the healing process are very impressive: large-scale gold-carved diplomas hung on the walls, an abundance of nickel-plated incomprehensible instruments (playing the role of the divine crystal sphere), blinking and buzzing instruments with foreign inscriptions, long-awaited and exciting “professorial” "Bypasses, accompanied by all recording students, etc. (According to eyewitnesses, well-directed professorial circuits by V.M. Bekhterev created this in High tension of expectation that almost faints occurred with patients.)
The true qualities of the product sold or the specific skills of a given seller are usually far less weighty than his ability to instill confidence in the prospective customer. This area of work of a practicing psychologist differs little from the sale of myths in any other human activity related to the seller – buyer relationship. There is something strikingly similar in the methods of auction sale of works of art and therapeutic practice.
V. Teteryatnikov (1991) notes that art dealers are the most successful, whose offices are located in the most chic districts and whose secretaries are the most beautiful. Although we understand that the quality of the purchased picture is least of all connected with the beauty of the secretary, we fall into the trap precisely by what we buy (as when referring to the “successful” tera to the singer) not “a thing”, but a “word”, “sign” . This myth trick has always been used by all the myth sellers, from lawyers to fortune-tellers. “Today's hero is one who does not think to be interested in the taste of the consumer, but forces the average man, handing him an unknown demand for something completely unrequited and unnecessary, if not harmful. Even in medicine, commercial success is ensured not by mastery of healing from existing ailments, but by mastery of instilling non-existent illnesses into the psyche of a completely healthy person who accidentally wanders to the doctor ” (Teteryatnikov, 1991, p. 46).
All the above allows us to understand why the wildest and absurd medical practices have a therapeutic effect, and the most incredible "scientific systems" find their followers. This is primarily due to the fact that the body feeling, becoming a symptom, begins to obey not only the natural laws, but also the logic of the myth in which it is included.
A practical question is put like this: is it possible to get rid of the mythologization of the disease and should it be done? Modern medicine tends to regard mythological beliefs as harmful delusions of the human mind, which should be eliminated as soon as possible. Her position in this is similar to the position of the classical ethnography of the 19th century, which considered myths to be remnants and superstitions {Taylor, 1989; Frazer, 1980). However, the true role of the myth is much more important. He brings order to the world, a system, coordinates human activities, strengthens morality, sanctions and gives meaning to rites, streamlines practical activities { Durkheim , 1912; Malinowski , 1926; Cassirer , 1946; Levy-Bruhl, 1930; Meletinsky, 1976; Losev, 1982; Levi-Strauss, 1983; Frankfort et al., 1984; Golosovker, 1987). The medical myth and the ritual resulting from it give the patient the opportunity to participate in the events taking place, tools for influencing the surrounding forces, ways of coordinating natural and social phenomena, provide a language in which painful sensations can be formulated and allowed to master them.
The myth cannot be “reversed” primarily because the ideas about the disease are fundamentally mythological by their very structure and way of formation, and the desire of modern medicine to get rid of mythologization should be considered at least utopian. The myth cannot be overcome from the inside, since the desire to get rid of him becomes his victim.
The pervasiveness of the corporeality of mythology leads to a long-noted phenomenon: “A belief or tradition can detect symptoms of decline for centuries, when we begin to notice that the social environment, instead of suppressing it, favors its new growth. A completely extinct relic again blossoms with such a force that is often as amazing as it is harmful ”( Taylor, 1989, p. 107). Now we are all - witnesses of this situation. It cannot be abolished by the directive method, declaring revived mythological ideas to be false, but it is possible and necessary to study, subtract and decipher hidden myths. This will help not to lose touch with reality, bearing in mind the fundamental limitation of mythic consciousness, and to use this knowledge in therapeutic practice, correcting harmful and creating the necessary mythology. This requires a careful study of the principles of the mythologization of the disease, since the medical requirements imposed and not included in the general system do not take root well on someone else's soil. Treatment, deprived of an adequate myth, largely loses its subjective effectiveness, while the most absurd and absurd recommendations included in the myth retain their attractiveness, despite the harm they objectively bring.
Medical practice and the mythology of illness brilliantly reinforce the provision put forward by R. Bart about the desire of every society (and especially the sphere of mass culture) to build semiotic systems, replacing "things" with "words" and "sign mi", but as these systems, it also sequentially disguises their semiotic nature, turning it into “natural”, “rational”. This semiotic paradox of mutual “shielding” of natural and symbolic material essentially confuses the situation and serves as a source of a great number of misunderstandings ( Barthes , 1970).
Часть 1 CHAPTER 5. SEMIOTICS OF BODY
Часть 2 - CHAPTER 5. SEMIOTICS OF BODY
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The psychology of corporeality
Terms: The psychology of corporeality