Illness or dysfunction as an illustration of inner disorganisation
The Being of Illness
Illness, over time, may become part of our identity. It doesn’t arrive fully formed. Often, it begins as a vague discomfort or pattern passed quietly through the generations. Each family constellation carries within it a tangle of possibilities—some genetic, some miasmic, others born from trauma or accumulated discontent. Illness can be inherited, contracted, or unconsciously constructed.
The Voices of Illness
Within us are multiple inner parts, each with a voice. These voices shape how we live, speak, relate, and feel. A complaint may begin with nothing more than tiredness, a dull ache, or occasional digestive upset. Over time, it grows into something more structured—a pattern, then pathology. Curiously, it is often the people around us who notice its gradual emergence. We ourselves, caught in the slow drip of change, rarely do.
This internal fragmentation—the quiet chorus of unmet needs, inherited beliefs, unresolved grief—becomes audible in how we speak of ourselves. “I’m always tired.” “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” “I think something’s off.” Language begins to shape reality.
From a psychosomatic perspective, this echoes the findings of psychoneuroimmunology, which explores how mind states, beliefs, and unresolved stress affect immune function and physical health. The science supports what traditional systems of medicine and ontological models have long proposed: that consciousness and physiology are intertwined.
In InnerDialogue, we teach that by restoring internal order—by allowing these voices to be heard, re-integrated, and placed in their correct place—we begin to shift the system. Attention, awareness, mindfulness, and the capacity to simply notice (what we call V-A-H-M) become essential tools. They allow us to observe, and gently alter, our inner chemistry—our biochemistry, our thoughts, and ultimately, our fate.
The Seed of Illness
We are hierarchical beings. What begins as a tiny signal, a seed—perhaps ancestral, perhaps environmental—can grow roots. The basement of our house, the unconscious material, is often where this seed is held. It lies dormant until the right conditions trigger its expression. Epigenetically, we now understand that environmental, relational, and emotional factors can “switch on” these latent codes. The metaphor of a seed germinating is apt. All it requires is a little water, the right soil, and time.
The ancient Chinese described illness in similar terms: the “soil” or foundational terrain of a person must be fertile for disease to grow. In other words, the ground within us must first be compromised. We inherit more than genetics—we inherit stories, suppressed griefs, unfinished business. The body stores it all.
The Descent into Belief
As this seed matures, it begins to change our internal landscape. Our neurotransmitters shift, energy levels decline, posture alters. The mammalian and instinctual layers—the way we move, eat, rest—are subtly warped. Eventually, behaviour and speech follow.
“I can’t go out anymore.”
“I’ve always had this.”
“I think I have…”
The refrain takes root. Naming becomes claiming. And once claimed, it hardens into belief. Belief narrows the field of possibility and becomes the foundation of a self-limiting loop: consciousness shapes chemistry, chemistry affirms dysfunction, dysfunction justifies belief. Around and around it goes.
Eventually, this can consolidate into identity:
“I am sick.”
And that identity—held both within and mirrored by others—can be deeply difficult to unravel.
Finding the Root: The Gift of Ontology
Yet every illness holds a root. And with it, a gift. If we can trace it back—through body, sensation, narrative—we may uncover the original breach: the moment something became disordered. This is not simply psychological or somatic; it is ontological. We are looking at the being of illness, not just its symptoms.
In this frame, the illness is not a curse but a calling. A message from the soul, demanding wholeness. The soul doesn’t necessarily speak in clear words—it speaks through pattern, body, repetition, gesture, and dreams. Its function is not to remove illness, but to grow us through it.
This is the quiet revolution of the work: illness becomes the threshold, not the problem. The unfolding of a narrative allows us to touch what is enfolded—what has always been there, but hidden. The parts of us that colluded in maintaining illness can now begin to reorganise. They are not wrong or broken. They’ve simply been trying to help in the only way they knew.
This is the terrain of healing. To become, quite literally, larger than the code or DNA we’ve inherited. That, too, is evolution.
The Silver Lining
Even in the darkest times, we can begin to look inward. We can learn to observe the architecture of ourselves—noticing how physiology, emotion, ancestral memory, and story intertwine. We may discover we are living out the unacknowledged suffering of a grandparent, or suppressing a desire that the body no longer tolerates ignoring.
By giving attention to the full system—body, soul, ancestry, consciousness—we create the conditions for something new to emerge.
Not just a recovery of health, but the remembrance of who we were before illness defined us.
Three Models of Illness: Miasm, Germ, and Terrain
Our understanding of illness has evolved over centuries, yet much of modern medicine still rests on relatively recent theories. To grasp the ontology of illness more fully, we must look beyond symptom and cause, and towards how illness is held—within body, psyche, family, soul, and field.
There are three primary models of disease in Western thought, each of which illuminates a different aspect of this mystery:
1. The Miasmic Theory
First articulated in various forms by ancient civilisations, and refined during the 18th and 19th centuries by thinkers like Hahnemann (the founder of homeopathy), the miasmic theory suggests that illness arises from subtle, lingering influences—“taints” passed down through generations. These are not viruses or bacteria in the conventional sense, but invisible, energetic disturbances—soul- or psyche-level distortions—that predispose the body to dysfunction.
A miasm is inherited, but also maintained through unresolved experiences, suppressed emotions, and environments that reinforce old wounding. In this model, disease is a symptom of a deeper field disturbance. The cause is not “out there,” but carried within—often unconsciously. These influences echo the residues of past traumas, cultural suppressions, and ancestral beliefs.
In InnerDialogue, when we speak of the “field” or ancestral resonance, we are often working within this miasmic frame. A cough, eczema, or recurring grief may not be purely physical—but a somatic expression of something unresolved, something waiting to be acknowledged and dignified.
2. The Germ Theory
Popularised in the 19th century by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, this model proposed that illness is caused by specific pathogens—bacteria, viruses, fungi—that enter the body from outside. Germ theory revolutionised public health, sanitation, and medicine. It brought order and accountability to the chaos of epidemics, offering targeted treatments such as antibiotics and vaccines.
But it also introduced a mechanistic view of the body: a battlefield under siege. The implication was that the body is passive, a container vulnerable to invasion. Illness, therefore, is a random misfortune, requiring intervention from outside.
Pasteur, interestingly, is said to have conceded later in life that “the microbe is nothing; the terrain is everything.” In other words, even the most virulent pathogen will struggle to take hold in a well-ordered internal environment.
3. The Terrain Theory
Often attributed to Claude Bernard and Antoine Béchamp, this model views the body as an ecosystem. Illness arises not solely from invaders, but from an imbalance within the body’s internal environment—its terrain. If the blood, lymph, and cellular matrix are compromised through poor diet, chronic stress, emotional repression, or toxic exposure, disease finds a fertile ground.
Terrain theory is holistic in nature. It respects the interdependence of systems—nervous, immune, digestive, endocrine—and recognises that health is not the absence of pathogens, but the presence of resilience. It aligns beautifully with many traditional healing systems, including Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, which focus on strengthening the system rather than attacking the invader.
In InnerDialogue, the terrain is not just biological. It includes narrative, ancestral imprint, soul fragmentation, and the symbolic architecture of one’s inner world. If the terrain is disordered, it invites dis-ease. Our work is to re-order it—not just physically, but ontologically.
Psychoneuroimmunology: The Science of the Inner Conversation
This brings us to one of the most promising scientific fields to bridge biology and consciousness: psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). This discipline explores how thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and social dynamics influence the nervous system, endocrine function, and immunity.
The premise is straightforward yet radical: the immune system is not separate from the mind. Instead, it is a responsive, listening organism—communicating constantly with the brain, the gut, and the emotional landscape of the self.
Chronic stress, for instance, is now known to suppress immune function, promote inflammation, and dysregulate hormones. Grief, shame, social isolation—these too alter the body’s inner chemistry. Conversely, practices that restore coherence—such as meditation, meaning-making, deep rest, forgiveness, and felt connection—can measurably improve immune response.
The vagus nerve plays a central role in this conversation. As the longest cranial nerve, it connects the brainstem to the heart, lungs, and gut, and is highly sensitive to emotional states. When the vagal tone is high (that is, when we feel safe, attuned, connected), the body enters parasympathetic regulation—repair, digestion, healing. When vagal tone is low (as in chronic anxiety, trauma, or disconnection), the body remains in defence—fight, flight, freeze.
This model is both scientific and ontological. It affirms what we see in the clinic: that the body responds to love, attention, and meaning. That illness can be a language—part metaphor, part memory, part messenger. And that healing begins not just with medicine, but with remembrance.
The Islamic Model: Djinn, Possession, and the Ontology of Interference
In Islamic cosmology, illness is not solely a matter of humours, germs, or internal imbalance—it may also be attributed to possession or interference by unseen beings known as djinn. These entities, made from smokeless fire, are part of creation, described in the Qur’an as having free will, consciousness, and the capacity to influence human behaviour.
Traditional Islamic medicine, and in particular folk healing practices across North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Southeast Asia, have long acknowledged that certain conditions—especially those marked by confusion, physical debilitation without clear medical cause, or sudden behavioural change—may indicate touch or possession by a djinni.
This notion of possession is not merely superstition. It points toward a model of illness where consciousness is not wholly contained within the body, and where the human is open to influences—ancestral, spiritual, energetic—that may embed themselves within the psyche or soma. In this worldview, healing must not only involve the body and mind, but also the spiritual realm. The goal is not eradication, but discernment and release—a return to alignment with the Divine.
Djinn as Metaphor and Clinical Reality
In the InnerDialogue work, we acknowledge the reality of such forces—not necessarily as literal demons or entities, but as metaphoric and energetic signatures that act like epigenetic switchers. They possess not in the Hollywood sense, but in the way a thought possesses, or an emotion overtakes.
A djinn may be seen as the carrier of pattern—a field of influence, passed through lineage, trauma, culture, or karmic memory. It may represent a particular archetype that has become entangled in the narrative of the person’s life. A controlling uncle, a silenced grandmother, a vow made in pain—these become embodied, held within the tissues, and are “spoken” by the body long after the story is forgotten.
To work with such an influence is not to cast it out with fire and fury, but to listen—to dialogue—with what it represents. Why is it there? What function has it served? What truth has been forgotten that allowed it entry?
This mirrors practices in Sufi healing, where the aim is not mere exorcism, but remembrance (dhikr)—a return to the Source. The soul, in its purity, is unaffected by the djinn. But the nafs (lower self, ego, pattern) is vulnerable. Healing, then, is the untangling of the nafs from the grip of illusion or inherited possession, so that soul may flow again through the person with clarity.
In this sense, a djinn is not an enemy, but a messenger from the field of the enfolded—a being or pattern that demands reckoning. And once acknowledged, it often loses its grip.