Great Construction

The Age of Fraud

     This article also bears a peculiar title, but indeed it is truth of which members of the general population merely have not become aware. What I mean is that in this age, there are really very few matters or affairs that are true, and most can be said to be, to a large or small extent, a public form of fraud. I will now describe this phenomenon, and as always, I begin with aspects of pharmaceutical drugs. Everyday we come across advertisements in the newspapers of which more than half promote some kind of medicine. Such great advertising costs have to be paid for, so you can see how well these drugs must sell. The amount of medicine ingested by people must be quite considerable, as half-page-sized advertisements appear almost daily. From our point of view, these advertisements amount to mostly nothing but fraud.
     For example, claims that such-and-such a medicine will work for so-and-so a disease, or can help prevent this-and-that disease, or will show wonderful results in increasing the amount of blood or in gaining muscle are all just means of deception for selling the product. The fraud operates on many levels. First of all, the authorities are not concerned whether a certain drug works or not but only that it does no harm, so it is quite scandalous that pharmaceutical companies take advantage. But even so, since ancient times exaggerated claims made for medicines have been commonplace, probably seen as a part of the normal course of events. This situation as well can be impartially viewed as one form of fraud. Moreover, since this business is a matter of making money by taking advantage of an individual’s weaknesses, it is most difficult to forgive.
     Another level of fraud is that of the medical profession itself, which substantially the same, remains unperceived by the general populace. Doctors seek to put their patients at ease by saying that they will get better in a week, or that if they receive a certain number of injections they will recover, or that if they undergo this surgery or take this medicine, they will be all right. It is probably the very rare occasion when has occurred a prognosis exactly as the doctor pronounced. That most prognoses are miscalculations should be well known to doctors. If the amount of these miscalculations were expressed in percentages, the number would be unexpectedly high. All in all, there should be no reason why this cannot be called fraud based on good intentions.
     Therefore, what doctors should really be telling their patients is, “Since I really don’t know what your sickness is, I cannot say anything definite. Even if you take medicine, even if you receive injections, even if you undergo such-and-such treatment, I cannot state that you will recover. I cannot say you will get better even if you are hospitalized.” I believe doctors speak as they do, because it is unavoidable. If doctors said such things, patients would go away and doctors would lose their livelihood. Also, some patients can be rather perturbing, and I can imagine that doctors find themselves in trying situations. In cases where a surgical operation is performed, I often hear of instances where recovery is not obtained the first time, and even after two or three procedures, healing does not occur, and, in the worst cases, a week of hospitalization and heated discussion among different doctors over treatment, can lead to two weeks, three weeks, half a year, a whole year, without recovery. For all this, patients pay great amounts of money for hospitalization with treatment and suffer for long periods only to have their condition worsen during hospitalization. Many are those who face either discharge from hospital without recovery or death, so speaking from the viewpoint of results, this is fraud and patients are the victims.
     That such things happen these days in the public eye without raising doubts or being held in suspicion in whatever manner can only be described as truly frightening. Moreover, in cases where recovery does not proceed as expected, doctors skillfully evade with such pronouncements as, “You have an abnormal constitution,” or “You came to me too late” or “This is really an acute case,” or ”Only one in ten thousand come down with your condition.” Among doctors, there are some conscientious ones who will admit that they made a mistake, but these are very rare.
     The next examples of present-day fraud that I will describe are those found in politics and government. It has become the common practice that whether official pronouncements by the government or campaign speeches made by Diet candidates, the promises made to citizens and to the voters are only valid for that occasion, and afterwards forgotten. No one is made to take responsibility for what has been promised. Political parties and other such organizations claim to speak for the nation, but they are only thinking of themselves, and all affairs are conducted and matters settled at their own convenience. The instances are many when such a manner of handling affairs eventually goes up in smoke.
     Those is in commerce and industry think it only natural that there be differences between samples shown for inspection before purchase and the actual product delivered. The number of dishonored checks has no limit. Society is permeated with fraud, the only difference being whether that fraud crosses the limits of legality or not. As such, in our world today anything entirely honest and transparent is hardly to be seen. It may be thought quite unexpected if I were to add the surprising statement that fraud is found in religion as well. Religious fraud occurs when a certain religion says it will heal your disease if you donate so much money. But, even when you make the donation, you do not recover, and indeed you may die, so it is truly fraud in the name of God. To say you have to believe to be healed, and that if you do not recover, it is because your faith was insufficient are also avenues of evasion, so who would claim that strictly speaking these methods are not fraudulent.
     As we look over our world today, even if it cannot be said that there is nothing that is actually true, what is true is very rare and deception through the telling of falsehoods has become the standard. It is to change this dark world into a bright one that is the mission of World Messianity, and that is probably why members of the general public refer to me as “Mr. Light.”

Eikô, Issue 231, October 21, 1953
 translation by cynndd