For decades, relatives and friends of brain damaged patients who seemingly are in a vegetative state have claimed their loved ones can understand and communicate with them, which is why often there is great resistance to removing their life support. It seems now they were and are right. Doctors are amazed that scans and tests on Scott Routley, from Ontario, a man badly brain injured for more than ten years, prove that he can communicate his feelings and answer questions through a conscious, thinking mind. Albeit using machinery, he is expressing himself through the power of thought despite injuries which would seem to make this impossible.
This and other similar cases overturns the conventional medical theories about the condition and treatment of brain injuries; more than this, it raises important questions about life and death, about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between the brain and the thinking process. It demonstrates the power of thought.
We are limited by our beliefs. Scott Routley has shown us some of those limitations and will change attitudes to brain damaged patients enormously. With no limitations, I wonder what the power of thought would enable us to do? Telepathy, bilocation, time travel….we had these skills before and they remain to be claimed and used again. What an interesting time it is to be alive.]]>
