1.1 What If We Have Been in a Collective Delusional State?

Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” This seemingly correct and harmless slogan sums up the problem with modern-day cognition.

When we hear René Descartes’ statement, “I think, therefore I am”, no one counters it by saying, ‘your thinking has nothing to do with your existence’. When Einstein said, “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one,” we redefined truth by perception, reinvigorating the Trinity delusion, instead of telling him off for secularizing dogmatic thinking. How ironic that today making up your own reality is considered to be the biggest sign of mental disorder.

When Buddhist traditionalists told us, “We don’t exist”, we introduced Yoga¹ that would ‘empty our mind’, nullifying the original meaning and falsifying the meaning of the word entirely. Scientists, instead of leading the science – the essence of knowledge gathering – yielded to the comedians, politicians, and tabloid journalists that led the civilization down the path of collective insanity. Science has turned into a comedy show and engineering a cartoon.

When Douglas Adams, a British satirist, said, “Everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you. You create a universe by perceiving it, so everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you,” we found that to be profound. When Al Gore, the lawyer turned politician turned science activist quipped on his way to touting nuclear energy to the Middle East, “Here is the truth: The Earth is round; Saddam Hussein did not attack us on 9/11; Elvis is dead; Obama was born in the United States; and the climate crisis is real,” we didn’t see his hypocrisy.

Then in the nadir of our hypocrisy, we gasped when a 52-year-old husband and father of seven, Paul Wolscht, declared from a newfound foster home, “I have gone back to being a child, Stefonknee”. In the meantime, we dig even deeper and double down on the same sliding slope by cheering on law professors, the likes of whom wrote, “Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime” (NewYork Times, Oct. 4, 2014). Instead of saying ‘we have heard that line before’, we nod feverishly. A scientist such as Richard Dawkins follows suit and says, “Mild pedophilia” doesn’t cause “lasting harm”.² Then, we are surprised when we learn that an ex-policeman, Alexander McCracken, 35, and his lover plotted to conceive a baby so they could abuse it and share it with other paedophiles in a plot to ‘deffo rape a little baby girl’ (as reported in the Daily Mail on February 26, 2015). Everyone watches this saga of a naked emperor, but no shepherd emerges to call out the emperor, who stands déshabillé before us. We have no moral ground and we are too busy increasing our pleasure and decreasing pain to think anything other than self-interest in the shortest term. We have lost all connection to our conscience.

Chapter 2 resets our collective delusional behavior to logical thinking and forces us to reevaluate what a human is before talking about human rights, the natural state of a human, or human maladies. This chapter reveals that we have been conned by ‘philosophers’ that are actually contemptuous of true knowledge, leaders that don’t care for those they are leading, and scientists that have zero tolerance for real science. The chapter establishes the undeniable connection of modern-day narration of humanity with the ‘original sin’ model and shows that over last few centuries, we have piled up hubris in building up falsehood over falsehood, while packaging dogmatic delusion as a secular enlightenment. The chapter sets the stage for replacing the culture of fear with the science of hope.

1.2 Have We Been Bankrupted to Become Unhealthy?

It is well recognized that the United States leads the world in technology development. According to World Bank data, the United States spent 17.4% of GDP on health care as compared to a world average of 9% of GDP. Outside of the military (which consumes nearly 3.5% of GDP government spending in 2014), healthcare is the largest industry in the United States. Interestingly, both defense and healthcare have to do with saving lives directly. However, healthcare is more closely associated with saving lives than defense, even though government spending in healthcare is much lower than that for defense. Figure 1.1 shows healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP for various countries and demonstrates how it has become the biggest financial drain for developed countries. Even though, approximately 10% of the total cost involves mental healthcare, it is meaningful considering the fact that mental ailments are the source of physical complications and eventual maladies (Islam et al., 2015). The bulk of this expense is in mental healthcare. Figure 1.2 shows some of the biggest spenders (in % GDP) on mental healthcare. The United States is by far the biggest spender in terms of actual dollars spent per capita.

Further analysis shows that the biggest rise in mental healthcare costs is for prescription drugs – an expense that has skyrocketed in recent years (Figure 1.3).

As pointed out by Kliff (2012), the near collapse of inpatient care is not an accident. The shift away from inpatient spending goes back to the 1960s, when states began moving away from institutionalization for the mentally ill. The Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 pushed for more treatment in community settings rather than in state-run, psychiatric institutions. As Kliff pointed out,

By treating the rest in the least-restrictive settings possible, the thinking went, we would protect the civil liberties of the mentally ill and hasten their recoveries. Surely community life was better for mental health than a cold, unfeeling institution.

But in the decades since, the sickest patients have begun turning up in jails and homeless shelters with a frequency that mirrors that of the late 1800s. “We’re protecting civil liberties at the expense of health and safety,” says Doris A. Fuller, the executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit group that lobbies for broader involuntary commitment standards. “Deinstitutionalization has gone way too far.”

Translation? We have once again been conned with a false promise.

It is estimated that some $330 billion out of $2.2 trillion of healthcare costs in the United States are due to prescription medicine (IMS, 2013). IMS Reports indicate the most prescribed drugs, along with their applications and known side effects, are as given in Table 1.1.

This table shows that antidepressant drugs themselves come as the second most prescribed drugs. In addition, it should be noted that all side effects induce anxiety that can cause or aggravate mental illnesses. For certain situations, this would create a spiral down mode as the distinction between biological and mental illnesses continues to be erased (Kosslyn et al., 2002). A recent study (Crump et al., 2013) found that on average, women and men with bipolar disorder died 9 and 8.5 years earlier, respectively, than people in the general population. People with bipolar disorder were two times more likely to die from any cause and were also at increased risk of death from heart disease, diabetes, COPD, flu or pneumonia, accidental injuries, and suicide. Women with bipolar disorder also had an increased risk of death from cancer. Also confirmed is a commonly known fact that mental illness can invoke suicidal behavior among the most vulnerable population of the community (Kelleher, 2013). Such occurrence of death further complicates the fact that several of the antidepressant drugs have been proven to increase suicidal behavior among the same population (Ilgen et al., 2010; Knock et al., 2013; Khan and Islam, 2012).

To date, it is considered that non-mental illnesses are primarily responsible for deaths. For instance, in the United States, heart disease is considered to be the leading cause of death, followed by cancer, stroke, respiratory diseases and accidents. However, if one takes the definition of health as “… a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of a disease or infirmity” (WHO, 2001), it becomes clear that mental health is intimately connected with physical health and behavior (Herrman, 2007). In fact, a more focused definition of mental health includes the following: “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community”.

It is becoming increasingly clear that mental health is the foundation for overall well-being and good health. The fact that mental health doesn’t receive as much focus as biological health emerges from the focus of society on tangibles and its reluctance to go beyond symptoms and medicinal interference.

In terms of historical background, the increase in prescription drugs involving antidepressants has been dramatic (a rise from 59.7% in 1996 to 72.7% in 2007) even though the number of diagnosed cases has not gone up (Mojtabai and Olfson, 2011). Painkillers are also being prescribed at an alarming rate. A hike of 600 percent was reported over the last decade (Zennie, 2012).

Chapter 3 investigates how the culture that converted the true purpose of life into ‘be happy’, ‘have fun’, ‘live to the fullest’ (translation: maximize pleasure and minimize pain, while making the rich richer and the poor poorer) has failed us. Chapter 3 analyzes the true effects of chemical drugs for various cases of mental ailments. It confirms some of the recent studies that indicate that nearly half of the total healthcare cost ($1.2 trillion out of $2.2 trillion total in 2008, $2.7 trillion in 2013) can be characterized as waste (Kavilanz, 2009). More importantly, it shows how prescription drugs have made us bankrupt both financially and emotionally.

1.3 Grounding Is Necessary but with What?

The talk of grounding has become ubiquitous – so much so that it has become what atomic energy and the sexual revolution were in the 1960s, in terms of generating tangible and intangible energy, respectively (no pun intended). Every crisis of a personal or social nature, be it depression, anxiety, alienation, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, financial difficulties, “there is an app for it”, and it’s called grounding. Everyone is yelling ‘focus’, but where? They focus on ‘nothing’ and that’s where the lunacy of new science³ sets in.

Karl Marx wrote in Das Kapital (vol. I), “To know what is useful for a dog, one must study dog-nature. This nature itself is not to be deduced from the principle of utility. Applying this to man, he who would criticize all human acts, movements, relations, etc., by the principle of utility, must first deal with human nature in general, and then with human nature as modified in each historical epoch.” Now that we know from Chapter 2 what humanity is, and what the purpose of human life is, Chapter 4 is ready to tell us how to deliver as a human, to be grounded and how to be grounded. It deconstructs centuries of disinformation and reconstructs a logical pathway for psychological grounding. It shows how to overcome the culture of fear and replace it with the audacity of hope.

1.4 Do We Even Know the Difference Between a Genius and an Insane Person?

We live in a culture that has a name for every ailment, but a cure for none. We introduced Volume 1 of this book series (Islam et al., 2015) with the following remark.

A professor of medicine in Canada was asked if there is any cure in modern era of any contemporary disease. After some reflection, he named penicillin as the only medicine that cures a disease. “Why then do physicians routinely ask if a patient has ever taken penicillin in his lifetime?”, he was asked. This time the professor was quick in replying, “Oh, that’s because today’s penicillin is synthetic (artificial)”. Of course, that poses the pointed question of whether there is any medicine today that is not artificial.” The same question was posed five years later, this time to an American professor of medicine. He couldn’t come up with any medicine. When the name penicillin was mentioned to him, he quipped, “Oh, penicillin is the proof that modern era has no medicine that cures; it only delays the symptoms” (p.1).

There is a reason that the modern era has no cure for any ailment. It’s because we do not know the cause of any disease. Pragmatism rules supreme as the indisputable dogma that governs our way of thinking, and that pragmatism tells us whatever sells is the truth. So, there is no incentive to finding the cause of a disease. After all, heaven forbid, that might actually cut our drug profit.

Of course, often we know the presence of bacteria gives one a certain ailment. But how is a human body overcome with such bacteria, defying all the immune mechanism we have in place? More importantly, how does an ailment persist even after the stimulus has been vanquished? While a cure is settled for a ‘management regimen’, who cares to find the cause when life-long management is far more lucrative? Chapter 5 takes a bottom-up approach. It looks into the causes of mental ailments after dividing the problem into tangible and intangible categories. Then, it offers natural remedies of both intangible and tangible varieties. Once the causes are revealed, the remedy becomes self-evident. Nevertheless they are presented and a guideline provided.

1.5 Is There a Continuity Among Depression, Dementia, and Schizophrenia?

We live in a culture with experts that are more like a sex consultant who cannot get a date. Everyone claims to know the answer to every question except the one that matters. Starting from the Harvard College days when ‘how many angels can dance on a pinhead’ was a serious research question, we have traveled through the nonsense of “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” to “Do we need God to be righteous?” In this book series, we have repeatedly questioned the fundamental premises of every theory that shaped our technology development. In this book, we show how new science has built up prejudices to congratulate itself rather than asking real questions that could unearth solutions to the crises humanity is facing. Chapter 6 answers the question as to how schizophrenia is different from dementia, depression and all other ailments. It then offers both tangible and intangible solutions.

1.6 How Can We Stop being Self-Destructive?

We have thus far established that every chemical solution to a problem has yielded an opposite outcome. These are not just ‘unintended’ side effects nor are they accidents. Scientific analysis shows these solutions are inherently counter-productive. So, how do we handle a healthcare system that introduces drugs as a cure to addiction while promoting the worst form of addiction? And, what mindset allows us to continue to rely on the same agents that lied to us repeatedly in the past? Chapter 7 analyzes the root causes of the self-destructive mindset and describes two categories of syndromes. The first one, called the oppression syndrome, addresses the general propensity to self-destruction. What used to be known as ‘taking pleasure in sinful acts’ is given a scientific explanation without resorting to the ‘original sin’ narration. More importantly, it is shown how such behavior can be identified and therefore corrected. The second syndrome deals with a mindset that develops contempt toward conscience and conscientious thinking. It’s called the Gujarat syndrome. Gujarat is a state in India that saw massacres of Muslims leading up to Muslims voting for the ruling party that was partially implicated in the massacre and, furthermore, developing contempt toward fellow Muslims. This syndrome is like being allergic to sunlight. On the tangible side, this latest syndrome can be compared with being allergic to mother’s milk.

1.7 Start Living Rather Than Making a Living: Make Humanity Great Again

Chapter 8 presents a recipe for resetting the mind clock. First it identifies the root causes of addiction – the biggest impediment to time optimization. Then, it offers practical solutions to optimize a lifestyle. This chapter is equipped with an appendix and a manual that can be used for all who seek a remedy to all major mental health problems.

The book ends with major conclusions and a 50-page list of references and a bibliography.