Can Ho’oponopono Heal Cancer

Both Cancer and ho’oponopono can be emotive subjects. The problem with cancer is that although many continue living having survived it, for others it’s synonymous with death. Ho’oponopono, on the other hand, is thought by some to be deceptively simple, unnaturally complicated, based on a true knowledge of how things work, or a downright scam. It all depends upon who is talking.

Since you’re here, I guess either you, or a loved one has been diagnosed with the disease and you’re wondering what to do. This short article will explain both what ho’oponopono aims to do, and also what cancer is before reaching a conclusion about the efficacy of ho’oponopono practice in cancer treatment.

What Is Ho’oponopono?

Ho’oponopono is an ancient form of problem solving that some think pre-dates Christianity. It translates as to correct an error. The error it resolves is the age-old one of separateness. In a nutshell it suggests that you are at one in the same moment both an individual inhabiting a time-bound body surrounded by a three-dimensional world, and also timeless eternity in which all things become possible, including the changing of your personal history, and that of ancestors and previous incarnations.

The ancient Kahunas of Hawaii who practiced ho’oponopono (most likely) filtered their experiences slightly differently to how we do today. There was less emphasis placed upon the concrete world of objects such as canoes, beaches, trees and life partners (the boats, houses, incomes, and status symbols of today’s world), and more on the ‘miracle’ of connectivity.

Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona is the founder of today’s Westernised ho’oponopono. She was a true Kahuna and exorcist. On Hawaii, even today, people are sensitive to earthbound spirits, nature spirits, nature in general, and the psychic life of objects, animals, birds, fish, plants, and other beings.

These can be troublesome, even to non-believers who don’t see them. When we offend such a spirit being we can bring down immeasurable ‘bad luck’ (Karma) upon ourselves.

There are many different methods of ho’oponopono that are open to Westerners. These include the ho’oponopono prayer (or mantra, which many falsely believe to be what ho’oponopono is); various cleaning tools, a multi-step ho’oponopono rite, and the essential one of taking 100% responsibility for whatever happens within your perception.

A Brief Discussion About Cancer

Like many other diseases, cancer isn’t thought to have been as prevalent in ancient times as it’s become today. It seemed to become so with an advent of its diagnosis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (as medicine became more scientific).

There are multiple forms of cancer which affect different parts of the human body. Some are more serious than others. Medical practitioners urge us to have regular check-ups so that an early diagnosis may be made.

At any one time, all of us are probably suffering with the potential to develop cancer. We have cancer cells within us. These cells, however, are abnormal and as a result normally get eliminated by the regular health maintenance systems of your body.

In this sense, cancer is less about abnormal cells being present, and far more about your regular systems being unable to eliminate them. Treatment for cancer varies from patient to patient. The medical practitioner essentially goes into a battle with the disease. Some will cut out any harmful cells found. Others will attack it with lasers, radiation, or toxic drugs (which may destroy the cells even if they make some patients feel sick).

The belief system (known in medicine as the placebo effect) has a huge part to play in the effective treatment of cancer. It’s known that patients who are determined to ‘fight’ the disease stand a better chance than average to improve. Visualisation can help, as can stress reduction. The help and support of family members may help too, provided the patient has always been on good terms with relatives, or has taken to a volunteer. If they’ve been largely been left to their fate until the diagnosis then support may seem like a duty being performed, or even the manipulative wish to benefit from a bequest (even if these aren’t the case).

Ernie Rossie (the author of The Psychobiology of Mind Body Healing) writes about a cancer patient who was thought to be chronically sick and likely to die. He was given a placebo having been told it was a trial drug. He had a fast remission and was discharged. Soon, however, he read that the ‘wonder drug’ he thought he had been given was a failure. Very soon he found himself back in hospital. There, his physician, told him that he had been treated with an early version of the drug, which was now so much improved that it invariably worked. The man improved and was discharged.

The entrepreneur Steve Jobs, however, believed in alternative methods of treatment, yet he died as a result of his cancer. Conscious belief frequently is insufficient to trigger the placebo effect, which must be tricked in some way. (Sometimes this ‘deception’ involves honestly telling a patient that they’re receiving a placebo yet the patient’s subconscious swings into action anyway).

People diagnosed as having multiple personalities, are know to suffer from chronic physical conditions in one personality, yet none at all in a different one. This, however, must be the subject of a different post.

People have experienced spontaneous remissions of their cancers. These are officially attributed to a number of different causes ranging from misdiagnosis, a change of habits resulting in better health practices, faith healing, magic, witchcraft, or alternative complementary therapies.

Ho’oponopono is sometimes thought of as one of these categories. It’s unscientific, in as much as no matter how one sets up an experiment it cannot be ‘proven’ as the reason you improved. This is because it’s you (or a person who has met you) who has asked themselves the question ‘What is it in me that causes me to ‘have’ or ‘be bearing witness’ to this illness?’

On the other hand, just because something is unscientific doesn’t make it wrong. Until the latter part of the nineteenth century almost all medicine was unscientific. When you’re injured in the outback, you’re grateful to receive treatment from a native witch doctor. Ayurvedic and various other kinds of traditional medicine (such as Acupuncture) rely upon the manipulation of (so called) energy centres around the body.

Can Ho’oponopono Heal Cancer?

Ho’oponopono never sets out to ‘cure’ or ‘heal’ anything or anybody. It’s there to correct the error we make in our identities which places each of us as being an independent actor subject to the ups and downs of a chaotic life.

It corrects this error by seeking the removal (cleaning) of the memories (data) our subconscious minds carry, which in some may give rise to cancer, or the witnessing of it. Once this data is completely removed the ‘illness’ goes from this person (and therefore any who share in the experience of it including the symptom-bearing patent).

Were I a Kahuna practicing within the Polynesian culture that prevailed until the arrival of Captain Cook on Hawaii in the 1780s I could be more positive about the efficacy of ho’oponopono. This is because such ‘folk medicine’ was widely understood.

Today, we live within a different dominant narrative in which science and scientific theories prevail. Just as scientists debate their theories, which alter over time, they are quite merciless in their condemnation of any understanding that falls outside of their realm. As a result, medicine is quite rule-bound and conservative.
So, whilst I can’t claim that ho’oponopono may heal you of witnessing cancer either directly as a patient, or indirectly as a relative, friend, doctor, or nurse – I can confidently assert that learning about it, and how to practice it can do you no harm.