BIOTHEOLOGY, IMAGERY AND HEALING

Abstract

Already a profound questioner at the age of ten, Hirsch wrote to Albert Einstein asking how he could reconcile being the greatest scientist in the world, while, as she had read, believing in the wrathful god of the Old Testament. His reply included this advice: “Try to form your opinions always according to your own judgment.” This simple yet startling exhortation became the guiding meter of her life. Growing up, she continued to be mystified by the incongruities she observed around her, and developed an interest in science while (quite by accident) becoming an artist. Her fascination with these two supposedly very different disciplines led to an ongoing inquiry into the relationship between the two, and ultimately to her understanding that the artist brings abstraction into form, while the scientist brings form into abstraction.

Couched in the disciplines of anthropology, psychophysiology, psychiatry, psychoneuroimmunology, philosophy/theology and art, this article focuses on imagery as a powerful vehicle for physical and emotional healing. Her blending of science and art reveals existing relationships between form in nature, form in human physiology and behavior, as well as the forms that are present universally in all alphabets. Drawing from her years of solitary wilderness sojourns, biomedical and neuroscientific research dealing with mind/body patterning, as well as her experience in diverse world cultures, including Tibetan Tantric visualization and Cabala, Hirsch addresses the hardwired wisdom of the body as the repository of intuition and intrinsic knowledge – leading toward health and behavior benefiting the greater good.

Additional high-resolution images of Hirsch’s paintings can be seen at www.gilah.com