Great Construction

Extreme Foolishness

     This title may have struck the reader as rather peculiar, but I use it because there is really no other way to express the concept. Another way to say it would be “super stupid.” Therefore, to read this essay, all fixed ideas should be thrown away so that it may be perused with a truly clean slate. The more the level of the contemporary intellectual, the more difficult it will be to do so. For example, were it determined that a jewel that had long been prized as a diamond turned out to be the same as a chard of stone, that it was only of some crude material, the discovery would probably be astonishing and petrifying. Leaving my prefatory remarks to this extent, I now take up the main topic, that of the relationship of disease to drugs. Nowadays all who get sick turn to drugs for recovery. There is probably no one who does not take drugs in these circumstances. Of course, medicines are ingested because it is thought that health will improve, because this way of thinking has been the common sense of human beings since a very long time ago.
     It is in this regard that I will now write about a surprising point that probably no one has anticipated. If read with a completely open mind it should be easily comprehensible. It is not so difficult at all, but so many have been afflicted by superstition for so long, it is a point that seems as if it should be understood but which is not understood at all. I will try to explain it in very plain terms which is the following. For example, that one was able to work with a very healthy constitution was because as much medicine as was needed was taken, but if for some reason money to buy medicines became unavailable, unavoidably the medicines would not be ingested for a certain period. In other words, one’s stock of medicine had run out. Then, because the medicines, that had until that point maintained health had run out, one got sick again, and hurriedly one tried to scrape together some money because nothing is as important as life, so enough money was gotten together, and medicine was bought. When the medicine had been ingested, health was regained and satisfaction obtained, just as one weakens from having missed one or two meals but as eating begins again, health improves and work can be started vigorously again.
     From reading so far, there is probably no one who does not have an inexplicable feeling, as if they understood yet did not understand. But in our world today, all conduct their lives in this peculiar way. This peculiar way is considered natural and not perceived. For example, there are those who pride themselves on being healthy so they do not have to take medicines, but this is also questionable. Being healthy because medicines are not taken completely contradicts the reasoning I described earlier in the illustration of those who say they are healthy because they take medicines. Then again, there are many cases of the following. That is, people who continue to take medicines throughout the year but who are constantly sick. This is also questionable, because if medicines cured sickness, patients should become healthier the more they ingest medicine, so it would be only natural for them to stop taking medicines when they felt better. People certainly do not feel the need to pay out a lot of money for some foul-tasting substance.
     What does not make sense is when people say they are healthy so they do not take medicine. They do not take medicine because they are healthy, and then again, there are people who say since they are weak and feeble, they take medicine. Since they take medicine, they are weak. These two kinds of people do in fact exist, and the latter are probably more numerous. In which case, it is only natural that these two types of interpretations do not add up. If this difference could be explained, medical science would long ago have resolved the problem of disease. An interpretation of the cause of disease is nothing at all for us in World Messianity which is shown most clearly as we continue to heal one after another those sick people that medical science cannot cure. Indeed, it is simple and easy to explain. Medicines create disease, and if medicines are not taken, illness is cured. It is as simple as this.
     As can be understood from what I have described above, the world today is under the superstition that medicines can heal disease in which large amounts of money are spent on treatments that create and worsen disease and that after a long period of suffering, all is lost. That society not only does not perceive this superstition but rather is satisfied with this situation surpasses stupidity. It goes beyond a stupidity that cannot be expressed in words. There has not been such stupidity in all history, so probably the words for it did not come about. The phrase “super stupid” grates on the ears, so I came up with the phrase “Extreme Foolishness” for the title. To get readers to understand the ignorance of and within medical science, my usual way of writing appears to be insufficient to crack my views into the obstinate heads of believers of the medical superstition, so I try various ways, thinking of this and trying that, to come up with new phrases, to find new places to punch that will get readers’ attention and lead them to salvation. Think of this essay as one of those efforts.

Eikô, Issue 227, September 23, 1953
 translation by cynndd