'Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Saturday night's nationwide broadcast, Movers & Shakers, our weekly programme, beamed live into your homes across the continent, where we chat with the people who make our great country even greater. Such people are the Movers and the Shakers of Atlantis. The Movers, our sources of inspiration, moving us onwards and upwards; the Shakers, our critics and bootcamp coaches, shaking off the remnants of our past and all those things that fail to serve us any more! As always, Part One of our programme begins with the Shakers!'
Bardo showed the back of one his large, blue flashcards to the camera.
'Our slogan for the Shakers?'
Like schoolchildren, the audience bleated out the words on the card:
ALL TRUTH BEGINS AS HERESY.
'Thank you, thank you, ladies and gentlemen! Tonight, we kick off with this week's Shaker, Dr Jordan Karpathian, recently returned from a controversial trip to the forbidden continent of Lemuria, that impenetrable culture less than eight hours' flight from here, steeped in mystery, silence and a thousand rumours, and visited only occasionally by the select few! Jordan, welcome to Movers & Shakers! So, tell us a little about yourself first. What do you do?'
'I head up the Health & Safety division of the QSA, that's the Government-appointed Quality Standards Authority, the Advisory Body responsible for Quality Control Regulation across the continent.'
'But don't companies and institutions have their internal quality control mechanisms in place?'
'Yes, of course. QC is a mandatory requirement throughout the whole of our economy and society at large. You might say that the QSA is the last line of defence.'
'You guard the guards! So the buck stops with you, right?'
'That is correct.'
'Meaning, if you don't like what you see, if the product or service does not pass muster or meet the required standards of excellence, you can demand its removal from distribution?'
'Well, yes and no. We make recommendations based on our assessment. We might alternatively recommend certain modifications and even removal from distribution, or cessation of service, for example.'
'Now, it's an open secret, of course, that since your return from Lemuria a short while ago, you've been causing quite a stir in the media and social networks. Your harsh criticism of the quality of our food and water supplies, for example, has been particularly controversial, even though it is not exactly within the parameters of the Health & Safety Division of the QSA. Would you care to comment on that first?'
'I hope you are not implying, Bardo, that proper nutrition and the quality of our drinking water have nothing to do with health?'
'Food Technology and Water Quality are separate divisions of the QSA, are they not? The head of the Water division, Dr Solpethio, is quoted as having said that basically, and I quote, my esteemed colleague, the group-leader of the Health Division at the QSA, should kindly mind his own business, as I mind mine.'
Bardo turned blandly to the audience, which responded with an outburst of laughter.
'You have been quoted in the press as referring to the Department of Sickness, your employers at Government Buildings, not the Department of Health. Can you explain what you mean by that?'
'I mean that the Department of Health is focused exclusively on sickness, not on health.'
The applause from the audience was a great relief, although it was still hard to know whose side they were on.
'But surely our general practices, hospitals and pharmacies are focused on health, are they not?'
'Natural, non-toxic food, good nutrition, clean, untampered water and clear, oxygen-rich air are all vital to our health and longevity. The reason why sickness and chronic diseases have increased exponentially over the years is because we have turned our backs on nature and abandoned the basic essentials required for our everyday survival and health.'
Bardo checked his prompt-card.
'Last Tuesday, the CEOs of nine out of ten of our major pharmaceutical industries in Atlantis, that's ninety per-cent of the industry, wrote an open letter to the Government in the Atlantis Broadsheet calling for your resignation, based on what they describe as your incompetence and naiveté. You are quoted as having denied the validity of allopathic medicine in the treatment of chronic illness. They describe such a statement coming from the head of Health QC at the QSA as, and I quote, outrageous and utterly irresponsible, criminally negligent quackery. Pretty strong stuff, eh? In an interview on this channel on Wednesday, one of the CEO signatories of that letter, a psychiatrist by training, went on to suggest that you should consider psychiatric evaluation in the wake of your ill-advised and extended contact with the Lemurians.'
'Yes, I saw that interview. Dr Rilopak, wasn't it? No doubt the good doctor has in mind a well-known brand of expensive, brightly-coloured capsules he can prescribe to cure my psychosis.'
Mercifully, the audience laughed again. It offered me a moment to reflect. Croescia and Jarok were at home looking in. I smiled faintly into the camera lens. I was doing this for them. It was high time I stood up for myself, Croescia reassured me. I wouldn't have been able to do it without her. She's taking it all so well. Although she hasn't been herself since the story hit the papers. The other mothers seem to be avoiding her at the school. Even Jarok himself told me this morning at breakfast that everyone in his class hated the Lemurians. When I asked him why, he said they just hated them, that's all.
'Clearly,' I continued, when the laughter died down, 'there's a role for allopathic medicine in acute medical situations; only a fool with sepsis or a broken leg will deny that. But medicine, as we know it, tends to focus on the symptoms rather than the cause, especially in chronic illness. Furthermore, in treating the symptoms, the cause is pushed further into obscurity.'
'So, are you suggesting that the pharmaceutical industry is not interested in the cause? Your training was in chemistry, was it not?'
'No, I'm not suggesting that at all. What I'm saying is simply, if the cause of chronic illness is non-physical, the treatment has to be non-physical. '
'So, how do you know if the cause is non-physical?'
'The cause is always non-physical.'
There was a murmur of disapproval throughout the audience.
'Of course there are triggers, but the energy body will succumb to the triggers if the cause is not addressed.'
When I glanced around, I saw people shaking their heads in perplexity and disbelief. Oops. I think I've lost them. Can't turn back now. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
'All healing must be based on spirituality; otherwise there is no healing. If you don't like the word spiritual, call it the energy field, the energy body template, where all diseases originate and have their blueprint. Symptoms may become less apparent with medical intervention, of course, but true healing must be energetic, spiritual, in tune with nature. Nature only wants us to be well, to be whole, to return to our natural state of homeostasis.'
'Meaning?'
'Equilibrium. Self-regulation. The body's internal balance, based on co-operation between the organs of the whole body and the cells within the organs. True healing addresses the whole body, not just a part of it. To address just one part of the body and ignore the rest, above all the energy body, is like trying to solve a flooding problem downstream while ignoring the knock-on effect upstream.'
'Yes, you have stated in one of your interviews that the body is less like a car and more like a river. Did I get that right?'
'A river of energy and information, yes.'
'And that we take better care of our cars than of our bodies, is that correct?'
Laughter. It was the way he said it.
'Yes.'
'So the cause of illnesses, you claim, is due to a block in the energy flow? '
'Yes, Bardo, that would be more or less correct.'
'And what might cause this blockage?'
'Everything negative, like fear, for example, or any negativity brought on by the illusion of separation. Separation of any kind is an illusion. There is no separation whatsoever in the infinite web of existence. Everybody, everything, everywhere, is interdependent.'
There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence as Bardo took a strategic breath designed for the camera, more like a sigh, and moved on to the next prompt-card in his hands.
