Experiments in Naturopathic Philosophy

Chronopaucity

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 14:07:01 GMT

Several years ago a friend of mine whose life has paralleled my own--we had the same sixth grade teacher and then rediscovered one another in medical school, coined the word Chronopaucity (Chrono=time, paucity=lack of) to describe the frantic pace that we were experiencing in our lives. He is a practicing Vedanta Hindu, and we both had come to the realization that it had become increasingly difficult to maintain a healthy balance of work and rest in our hurried lives, and it is especially challenging to find time for contemplation.

"We are compelled to read for profit, to have parties for contacts,

go to lunch for contracts, play for therapy, drive to get there,

gamble for charity, go out to build the community, stay home to

rebuild the house. Our leisure hours are as frantic and busy as our

work hours and therefore meaningless-meaningless enough to drive

some of us to drink, some of us to the hospital, and all of us to the

beck and call of the marketplace."

--William Mcnamara

The problem of the frantic schedule is that it becomes easy to convince ourselves that we can't afford to do "nothing" for any length of time; a perspective, I have discovered, that is worsened by a business model that reduces time to increments of money. If this mindset is allowed to permeate our spiritual life and contemplative practice, we are bound to experience a certain tension in our mind and body which may well impede our evolutionary process.

I have to remind myself that contemplative practices can not be allowed to become a distraction or an escape from daily routines. I find that I need to regularly "check in" with myself: Have my contemplative practices become mere diversions? Or are they touching something deeper in me? Have I lost the ability to be at peace in my moments of rest? Cluttered schedules not only constrict the time we have, but also manipulate our understanding of value and worth. It is crucial to remember the simple value and beauty of life as it is, not as it is used.

Just thoughts going through my head as I wrap up some final loose ends from last year.

Bursera microphylla

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 03:03:52 GMT

I have spent the past three months studying this tree. It has totally captivated me, there were two specimens documented in this area in the 1940's and reported again in 1973. There are no trees at all at the GPS coordinates for the original specimens given to me by the Arizona State University herbarium. I kept looking, and, to date, I have found 22 different Bursera microphylla specimens. Here are some pictures of this amazing tree. Cut?

A particularly twisted specimen of Bursera

The smell of these trees is absolutely heavenly

The Seri believe that this tree was the very first thing created when this world came into existence

This is the oldest and gnarliest grandmother--also the most northern outlier of Her kind

Petrolglyphs behind the first of the trees that I found--next to a now dry waterfall and series of pools.

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:08:59 GMT

Court upholds decision to close Pappas Schools
These were schools that served homeless children. It is difficult, and usually impossible to register a child for public school without providing a physical address.... It is often far easier for the families to not send the children to school at all. The Pappas schools weren't just an educational resource, they were the entry point for many homeless families into assistance programs that they had not heard about outside of the school. The free clinics that the school provided were often the only healthcare that many of these children ever received. The schools provided a community meeting place for homeless families who might feel even more alienated and marginalized except for the opportunity to interact with other families in similar circumstances. They were a gathering point for information about the realistic needs of a very under-served community of people. Children who were homeless could interact freely with their peers, other children in like circumstances, avoiding the inevitable ostracization that happens in the public school setting. The usual bond measures are designed to fund community schools through taxing the community that would benefit from the presence of the school. Who pays for a school for homeless children? Apparently nobody.

Serpents...

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:36:37 GMT

Serpent pictures under the cut...

We share our bedroom with three Sumatran Blood Pythons (Python Curtus Brongersmai), this one is Susumna, the other two are Ida and Pingala.

This is a Diamondback Rattler who found himself on our porch a few nights ago, looking for love in all the wrong places ;-) I found a nice rodent-infested brush pile in the desert to relocate him.

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:24:39 GMT

Naturopathic Medicine is a distinct school of medical reasoning that is unique to North America. We are guided by a philosophy which emphasizes health restoration rather than disease battling. The role of the Naturopathic physician is to invoke healing by helping patients to create or recreate conditions for health to exist within them. The idea is that health will occur where the conditions for health exist, just as disease is the product of conditions that allow it to exist.

Realizing that the inherent susceptibility of an individual towards one disease process or another is often a much more powerful and proactive tool for helping people to become healthy again.

In the United States, Naturopathic medicine dates back more than 100 years. Its roots include traditions of healing that have been used with success around the world for centuries, the emphasis resting on the use of therapies that are natural and non-toxic. Naturopathic medicine enjoyed a hey-day in the early 1900’s when it was a dominant form of medicine practiced in North America. It became almost extinct from the 1940’s through the 1970’s; and since the early 1980’s, Naturopathic medicine has experienced renewed interest and popularity. Today, Naturopathic physicians are licensed in 16 states, all of the US territories, and 5 Canadian provinces where they function as primary healthcare providers.

Although Naturopathic medicine has been practiced for more than a century, it has only been in the past 20 years that naturopathic medical colleges have been accredited by an agency recognized by the US Dept. of Education, that is, the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME )(www.cnme.org). During this same time period, a national professional association of physicians from accredited schools has formed, (AANP) (www.naturopathic.org), national board licensing examinations, NPLEX, have been administered, and a national board of naturopathic examiners, NABNE (www.nabne.org), has been formed. We have seen a more recent professional leap forward with the formation of the Council of Naturopathic Licensing Exam Chairs, a consortium of leaders from the Naturopathic licensing examination whose intent it is to establish firmer and more stringent standards for the licensure of candidates in Naturopathic medicine.

Cancer

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:07:59 GMT

Cancer is considered the scourge of the modern age. There seem to be as many different manifestations of cancerous processes as there are people who are afflicted with them. There is no absolute cure for this family of diseases, but, there are incredible individuals who are able to resolve them.

The approaches that I have seen effective for patients who are afflicted with cancerous conditions are many and varied, customized to the patient's current needs with some strategic overview guiding the process. The initial stages of the process for me are to try and determine, as well as possible, what might have started this crazy process in somebody, and exactly where is it, how bad is it and what are the adjacent structures that might be affected as the conditions progresses. Some patients come to see me because they are undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy and they would like to mitigate some of the side effects common to those approaches. Other patients would like to try to avoid surgery, chemotherapy or radiation altogether in their search for a cure. In both cases, we have to be bluntly honest and straightforward with what we are doing. As a health-care practitioner, I am ethically obligated to inform patients not only about what I might have to offer them but, also, what standards of care dictate should be done for them for the particular diagnosis that they present with. This means that sometimes I have to have that very difficult conversation with people that takes into account the statistics of treatment for their condition and what might be the most practical route for them to pursue. It may be that the size of the tumor is such that destruction of the cancerous cells is going to cause a flood of necrotic material through their system, resulting in a life threatening septicemia, and we might have to engage in a some kind of debulking process, which might involve surgery or radiation, before we engage in a specifically cytotoxic approach. In some cases, it may be that it is exactly that necrotic overload that provides the basis for a renewed immunological onslaught towards the cancer.

No matter what specific means might be employed to address the patient's condition, a regimen of diagnostics needs to be agreed upon so that we can know that the interventions that we have created are doing what we need them to do. This might mean an x-ray, CT scan, ultrasound or MRI on some kind of regular basis, we have to unflinchingly look at our progress and change our approach depending on our progression. This diagnostic update might also include regular blood tests or other testing, in order to see how the entire system is managing the processes of intervention.

I think that a reasonable place to start with patients who are afflicted with a cancerous process is diet. My generic approach is often pared down to suit the specific needs of an individual, but often begins with elimination of processed foods, emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables and clean protein. Initially, I might try to keep them at less than 60 grams of carbohydrates per day with an emphasis on low glycemic, complex carbs from fruits and vegetables. Our goal is to get as much color into their diet as possible. Clean sources of protein should be present at each meal, fish is ideal, not everyone can tolerate sardines, but they are effective. Organic chicken or turkey is a decent second. I try to emphasize the idea that the quality of the conditions that the animal was raised in is a large determinant of the quality of the food that the animal will provide. Supplemental fiber is often very helpful and may be as cheap and simple as ¼ cup of ground flaxseed twice a day or an elaborate citrus pectin powder with ellagic acid and/or an arabinogalactan powder added to it. We don't necessarily want these patients to lose weight, but we do want to reduce the role that insulin can play in selectively feeding tumorous processes.

Botanical intervention for many of these patients involves an alterative approach that is intentionally changed at least every six weeks. I like to rely on the classic alterative formulas (please be aware of the usual disclaimers, some of these plants can kill you, use some common sense and seek out professional guidance instead of attempting these on your own):

Turska's Formula

1 part Gelsemium sempervirens

1 part Phytolacca decandra

1 part Bryonia alba

½ part Aconitum napellus

Dosage is 10 drops in 4 ounces water three times a day, as the patient tolerates the preparation, we will often increase the dosage up to 20 drops in 4 ounces of water and the patient sips this mixture for several hours throughout the day. This preparation is very useful in gynecologic processes, prostate cancers and when there is a lot of pain related to the presence of a tumor.

Thompson's #6

4 parts Commiphora myrrha

1 part Capsicum frutescens

(Most often, I use Paul Bergner's variation on this theme, which includes

4 parts of Hydrastis canadensis)

Dosage is to tolerance, but typically starts with 10 drops three times a day and may

go up to 30 drops four times a day.

Beach's Alterative (especially good for respiratory conditions)

4 parts Smilax sarsaparilla (I have also used the Ayruvedic herb Anantamul (Hemidesmu indica)

2 parts Guaiacum officinale

1 part Laurus sassafras

1 part Sambucus canadensis

1 part Arctium lappa

This is a fairly non-toxic preparation, a typical dosage begins with 30 drops three times a day (or, if encapsulated, 1 capsule three times a day).

Scudder's Alterative ( My modification)

1 part Corydalis formosa

1 part Rumex crispus

1 part Alnus serrulata (I will typically replace this component with Rhus glabra)

1 part Scrophularia nodosa

These first four ingredients are added together in equal parts as tinctures, typically a total volume of 120 ml, this is given to the patient in a separate bottle.

Prepare a Podophyllum peltatum infusion (1 oz. powder in 4 oz. Boiling water, let it sit for a few hours and then strain) add this to four ounces of honey or glycerine, to make a syrup base.

Typical dosage is 1 dropper (1 ml) of the tincture in 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of the syrup three to four times a day.

Robert's Formula

(typically, I make this as an encapsulated formula)

1 part Phytolacca decandra

1 part Althea officinalis

1 part Hydrastis canadensis (I often replace with Berberis aristata, or Mahonia)

1 part Geranium maculatum

1 part Zingiber officinalis or Alpinia galanga (the original recipe calls for Echinacea)

Typical dosage is 1 to 2 capsules three times a day.

Hoxsey Formula

( there are huge number of variations on this formula, there are also crazy stories that go along with this preparation from the plausible: “Harry Hoxsey's grandfather got it from the Native Americans”, to the highly improbable: “Hoxsey or his grandfather observed a sick horse preferentially seeking out this particular combination of herbs and found itself well”. ) There are numerous varieties of this combination and I currently use Herbal Vitality's Hoxsey-like formula.

Trifolium pratense, Phytolacca decandra, Mahonia, Stillingia sylvatica, Arctium lappa, Cascara sagrada, Glycyrrhiza glabra, Zanthoxylum fraxineum, Sassafras albidum, and potassium iodide.

The typical dosage is 1 ml-3 ml three to four times a day.

Essiac Tea

Equal parts of Rheum peltatum, Arctium lappa, Ulmus rubra, and Rumex acetolla are brewed as a tea and the patient consumes a cup three to four times a day.

Compounded Stillingia Liniment

( This is a topical preparation that can be made into a cream, I have found it very helpful for chronic pain in the chest, lung congestion, croup in little kids, and as a plaster/pack for patients with lung cancer)

4 parts Stillingia sylvatica tincture

1 part Lobelia inflata acetract

2 parts volatile oil—Melaleuca, Eucalyptus, White Plum Flower, Po Sum On, Five Photos, etc.

To make a liniment—add 6 parts each of alcohol and glycerine.

To make a cream, start with a salve base, 5:1 oil to beeswax with the therapeutic oil added into the total volume of the oil portion, olive, almond or sesame oil as the rest of the oil combination.

Include about 5-6% of the projected final volume of cream as emulsifying wax, as the salve cools, slowly add the Stillingia and Lobelia components, while mixing in a blender or a wire whisk. The final result will have a consistency somewhere between a salve and a water in oil cream. It is warming to the skin and comforting. The application of this preparation will often provide several hours of rest for patients with a chronic cough due to a cancerous condition.

Naturally, the choice of alterative is specific to the patient's particular needs and an endless array of variations can be applied to ensure that the intervention matches the patient's condition as well as possible. Other botanical agents that I have found well suited to application with patients afflicted with cancerous conditions include:

Catharanthus rosea, Cercocarpus montanus, Taxus brevifolia, Cephalotaxus fortunei, Camptotheca acuminata, Croton lechlerii, and Sanguinaria canadensis.

These are all plants that have lent themselves to application in patients with cancerous conditions and have shown promise in one or another. We are still in the infancy of understanding the role that these agents are able to play, some of them are the raw material for the creation of certain chemotherapy drugs, and by employing them with that in mind, we are applying a crude chemotherapy regimen that might be more tolerable than the chemotherapy itself and may also be less effective. This is the place where aggressive surveillance of the process is necessary to know that the dosages and administration methods are being as effective as we need them to be.

An interesting historical note: Drs. Wall and Wani reported the discovery of a compound they termed camptothecin from the Chinese "happy tree", Camptotheca acuminata, in 1966. The unique mode of action for this potent cytotoxic compound was found to be the inhibition of an enzyme known as DNA topoisomerase I. Camptothecin traps this enzyme, inhibiting DNA replication and killing the cancer cells. Then again, in 1971, Drs. Wall and Wani reported the structure of Taxol found in the Pacific yew tree, Taxus brevifolia. The unique mode of action for this compound was found to be the stabilization of microtubule assembly, an important step in cell division and a mode of action that was unlike any previously observed anti-cancer compound. Dr. Wall passed away several years ago, but, Dr. Wani is still around and he did an interview for the American Chemical Society's Division of Historical Chemistry a few years ago. During the interview, he was asked where he thought the future of chemotherapy was heading. His reply was to say that they had found numerous other potentially effective agents in Camptotheca and Taxus, but the rush at the time was to put the company's name on one of those compounds and get it into the market place. His prediction was that research would go back to those plants and look at some of those other constituents. He also said that he wouldn't be a bit surprised if we found that combinations of those plant constituents to be better tolerated and more effective.

Wouldn't it be ironic if, as more of us in the botanical medicine community use the minimally processed versions of these agents, and gain a confidence in their application, that we would ultimately them to be more effective with many of these conditions than the extraordinarily expensive and toxic analogs that currently dominate the marketplace? One of the issues that we have within the botanical medicine community is accessing good quality product and then communicating our relative degrees of effectiveness in ways that make that process reproducible. My hope is that through such honest discussions, we can further open those doors.

Mixed feelings

Sun, 25 May 2008 05:24:51 GMT

This is Quincy, our one-eyed dog. He sees things in this world and the next. He is very old, in fact, older than most of our children. He loves to have his empty eye-socket rubbed. Most people won't do that for him because they think it's creepy. He was bitten in the head by a rattlesnake several years ago, blindsided, as it were. His head was twice as big as it had been and we were pretty sure he wouldn't make it. He is still with us. He has endured a lifetime of Valley Fever, a fungal organism that lives in the soil of the Sonoran desert. He lost his eye because of it, developed a chronic granulomatous conjunctivitis that resulted in severe glaucoma. He was still at the Humane Society at that time. When we met him, he still had the stitches where his left eye was sewn shut. The disease has given him a progressive arthritis and he spends most of his days laying in the sun. He has outlived all expectations, sometimes I wonder how much of a favor we have done him by diligently treating him and keeping him alive. I realize that some fates are worse than death and I hope that we haven't created something like that for him. I value his presence, at this moment he is lying at the literal foot of my bed. Somedays I have to nudge him to make sure that he is still breathing. It will be a terribly sad day, full of relief, when he decides to move on.

Nature as Medicine

Wed, 21 May 2008 12:28:37 GMT

Nature can be a powerful tool for facilitating self awareness.
Carl Jung introduced us to the word "persona", which can be interpreted as "mask".
TS Eliot reminded us that we prepare a face to meet the faces that we meet.
The superficial, small 's' , self , depends on status symbols to validate its existence. In the minds of many of us, the houses we live in, the cars we drive, the colleges we attend, and the degrees and qualifications that we accumulate determine who we are. Even in the wilderness we may supplant these symbols with the latest in high tech gear or egotistical descriptions of our achievements running rivers or scaling peaks.

The oneness inherent in mystical experience allows these superficial trappings to fall away along with the duality of everyday existence. Union with the Divine allows us to realize our higher Self and find our higher purpose. Nature, immersion in the wilderness, allows us to lose our selves to find our Selves. Here we are better able to appreciate that feeling of unity and the interconnectedness of all things. This experience might serve to provide a framework for understanding how the world’s indigenous healing traditions might help us connect with the Divine. The purpose for such an exploration might be to help individuals find their own spiritual path to healing and to discover the territory within the psyche that is the common ground of all spiritual/healing traditions. What I share is only what I have found to be true in my own limited context from my own search for some consistent truth in the relationship between the mind and the body and connection to the Divine. It should also be stated that my perspective is also born out of a very fervent, often fanatical, belief in the Vis Medicatrix Naturae, the healing power of Nature.

Herbs speak to us in a very primal manner; they connect us with Mother Earth in a very basic and universal way because they are so freshly removed from her bosom and still retain the undiluted effect of her close presence. Inasmuch as herbs and the many possible ways that they enhance and affect our lives are an extension of Mother Earth, they are also a way of connecting with that archetypal presence that so enchants us, that draws us in with the promise of solace, comfort, and wholeness, even, of belonging, and the possibility of union with the Divine. It is an innate understanding within each of us that true healing lies in the reconciliation of our ego, the layers of self that separate us from one another, with the ground substance of being personified by Mother Earth.

It may be that Nature is such an effective mirror of our souls because our souls are elements of the earth’s soul. Archetypal forms and patterns exist not only in the human psyche but also in the outer world of Nature. We experience these earth archetypes as emotionally captivating, even enchanting; and every individual’s soul resonates with certain archetypes more than others. Our particular enchantment with any facet of Nature is our identification with that certain archetype. As we open ourselves to that element of wildness, we are allowed to discover a quality of our own souls that longs to be embodied in this world. As we allow that aspect to become embodied along with the rest of our selves, we become more whole, out of our wholeness comes healing.

The Mind-Body Continuum and western science

Sat, 17 May 2008 19:58:52 GMT

The whole field of mind-body medicine in the western world has exploded over the last thirty years and may represent encounters with the Divine as well as a way for the modern mind to reconcile mystical experience with everyday life. Along with our increased understanding of the mechanics of thought, brain function, and consciousness has evolved an empowerment that these are things that may be manipulable. Although we have not reached the level of sophistication in our understanding that would be necessary to create an absolute map of human consciousness, we do have enough information to be able to create reasonable and reliable intervention strategies for healing. The story of the western world’s attempt to reconnect with the Divine through the mind-body continuum begins with a man cured by a train wreck on the way to see his physician:

1872-Daniel Hack Tuke, while traveling by train to see his physician the train wrecks and Tuke is emotionally stunned but physically unhurt, and, to his surprise he finds the symptoms of his illness are gone. Tuke begins collecting more of such cases and publishes the book, Illustrations of the Influence of the Mind upon the Body in Health and Disease, Designed to Elucidate the Action of the Imagination. Soon afterward, George Miller Beard, a neurologist, presents a talk to the American Neurological Association on the mind’s influence on disease. He calls upon physicians to better utilize the power of the doctor-patient relationship in healing. Beard’s talk creates an uproar and he is accused of claiming that physicians should lay down the stethoscope and scalpel in favor of the begging bowl and the robe.

1884-William James, the great American philosopher, psychologist and physician proposes that emotions are produced by unconscious processes in the body, not in the brain, as was previously assumed. He asserts that emotions are tied to perception, that it is not what happens to us but our immediate perception of the event that creates the emotion. James’ assertions establish that it is now acceptable to study both the physiology and the pathology of emotions.

1915-Walter cannon, an American physician, presents the idea that the hypothalamus is the emotional center of the brain. This is in stark contrast to James’ assertion that emotions originated in the body. He describes the “fight or flight” response for the first time and refers to it as the body’s first line of defense against danger. He describes the process as blood rushing into the skeletal muscles and chemicals being dumped into the system, technically, the first neurochemical description. Later, Cannon presents the idea of homeostasis, the body’s tendency to seek equilibrium in all its systems.

1939- You Must Relax, the classic treatise on the health benefits of physiological relaxation by Edmund Jacobson, PhD, becomes a best-selling book. Conventional medical researchers grudgingly acknowledge that psychological factors may accompany or cause disease. Walter Rudolph Hess, using a new diagnostic method called the EEG, identifies the limbic system. He wins the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work on the trophotropic response in cats. This research leads to new insights into stress, hypertension, and pain control in humans; it also sheds new light on the phenomenon of hibernation in other mammals.

1950-Hans Selye, a Canadian neuroendocrinologist, describes diseases of adaptation. He argues that adapting to stress is a natural mechanism for human survival but that the stress of modern living causes increased levels of stress adaptation and eventually results in exhaustion and death.

1957-Basu Bagchi and M.A. Wenger pack EEG machines up to the caves of meditating yogis in the Himalayas to measure their brain waves. Ten years later two Japanese researchers, Akira and Harai, measure the brain waves of Zen monks in deep meditation and compare them to those of the yogis. About the same time, neurophysiologists studying transcendental meditation, propose the radical, but 5000 year old idea that meditation is not sleep, but a fourth state of consciousness beyond waking, dreaming and deep sleep.

1969-Charles Tart, a transpersonal psychologist, publishes his influential and landmark work, Altered States of Consciousness. He discusses meditation, psychic phenomenon, aboriginal dream psychology, and psychedelics in the context of health and growth and provides scientific credibility to Maslow’s concept of the self-actualizing personality. Tart describes “state specific sciences” asserting that altered states of consciousness contain their own sources of knowledge and personal power; he expresses concern over the inappropriateness of judging one state by the methods and assumptions of another.

1974-Herbert Benson, a medical doctor and researcher at Harvard University publishes his classic work, The Relaxation Response; where he describes a simple method for lowering the heart rate and blood pressure, decreasing metabolism and controlling pain. Benson’s later studies suggest that the state induced by the relaxation response is common to many of the world’s traditions of prayer and contemplative practice. He provides a certain level of scientific credibility to the idea that certain spiritual practice, including visualization, breath control and deep muscle relaxation, establishes a means by which the unconscious can communicate with the conscious mind and allows for a method of transformation for both body and mind. Four years later, Robert Ader, an experimental psychologist at the University of Rochester, reports that he has discovered a way to condition the immune systems of rats. Attempts to prove the same phenomenon in humans involve experiments where college students are shown films of Mother Teresa and films of Nazi atrocities while their salivary immunoglobulins levels are measured. Sure enough, the emotionally positive stimuli cause surges of immunoglobulins, while the emotionally negative stimuli caused diminished immunoglobulin output.

1984-Beginning with the opiate receptor, Candace Pert and colleagues at the National Institute of Health successfully map an array of neuropeptide receptors throughout the body. Neuropeptides are found in the limbic system, up and down the sensory aspects of the spine, throughout the gut, and even on the individual cells of the immune system as they float through the body. The researchers hypothesize that their findings are fundamental to the biochemistry of emotion, prompting Dr. Pert to echo William James with her statement that “the physical body is the subconscious mind”.

1987-The Evolution of Psychotherapy Congress in Phoenix, Arizona estimates over 300 different forms of psychotherapy. Under the right circumstances, each of these therapeutic interventions facilitate mind-body communication and healing to some degree. All of these potential interventions are authentic and valid if they are able to allow the patient to “objectify” their situation and then to transcend it. Objectification can come in the form of creating a narrative of their life; that is, telling their story to a concerned audience. As the circumstances of life are translated to a narrative it allows an empowerment within the individual, describing their circumstances puts them, momentarily, out of the loop and provides a shift in perspective. Transcendence is facilitated by the shift in perspective,; greater meaning can be attached to the process and applied to the circumstances.

1998-Present-Esteemed neurologist and 30 year meditation practitioner James Austin publishes his award winning work, Zen and the Brain. In his book, he reviews extensive experimental evidence for the effects of meditation and suggests a systems approach to studying the brain and the body to understand the effects of this practice. At about this time, Eugene D’Aquili and Andrew Newberg coin the term “neurotheology”. Using PET scans, they are able to look at the brains of Buddhist meditators and Christian nuns during contemplative ecstatic states. They propose a continuum of ecstatic experience located in specific sites of the brain and suggest an evolutionary function for heightened spiritual experience. Herbert Benson and some colleagues conduct a review of the literature and hypothesize that the placebo effect is a natural bodily reaction like the fight or flight response. Instead of preparing for battle or escape, the placebo effect rejuvenates and restores; it is an inborn, unconscious response to reestablish health whenever it is threatened. The effect is believed to be mediated by nitric oxide release by sympathetic nerve bundles in the brain which produce a flow of endorphins, cannabinoids, and estrogens with the combined effects of getting rid of pain, reducing inflammation, killing microbes, and even defending against chronic disease. The relaxation response associated with prayer and meditation is thought to trigger the same healing response.

Called to It...

Fri, 16 May 2008 04:13:43 GMT

We have created the science of psychoneuroimmunology in an attempt to better understand the seemingly nebulous connection between the mind/spirit and the body. Ironically, the more sophisticated our understanding becomes, the more we come to realize that the modern day keepers of this particular Truth may well be the people of the world’s “wild areas”; the deserts, tundras and jungles that the early Europeans deemed too wild to be of any real value. Here the knowledge of our ancestors and our true relationships with the Earth are still held sacred. Here they still understand the value of plants in recreating one’s connection with the earth and wholeness. They have not yet lost their understanding of the mind-body connection.

In 1967, the noted psychologist, Alan Silverman wrote an article entitled, “Schizophrenia and Shamanism”, what he described was the study of Shamanic mythology as an imagery derived from the psychological experiences of the shamans who create it. A seemingly straightforward approach to the subject given that we all tend to create meaning in our lives by interpreting our experiences within the context of our greater cultural perspective.

According to Silverman, the shamanic psychological crisis becomes the source of their imagery. The shaman is a person who, early in their life, experiences the call to become something more, a healer within their community, much like each any one of us who finds ourselves practicing the healing arts in our culture. This understanding precipitates a sort of “cracking off” from the normal modes of perceiving the world, a sort of psychosis ensues. In traditional societies, a mature shaman is sent to help the young shaman through this process. By interpreting the signs and symptoms of the young psychotic, the older shaman helps to bring him/her out of it, and an apprenticeship may well begin.

At the turn of the century there was a Danish explorer, Rasmussen, who traveled throughout the wilderness of North America. He wrote fairly extensively about his conversations with the Native People that he encountered. He reported the story of one particular individual from northern Canada who, when the initial shaking and retreat from the world came on, his parents sent for the village healer. The older man took him on a sled out into the wilderness and left him in an igloo for thirty days, bringing him some tiny bit of food and water every ten days or so. He admitted that this was a horrendous time in his life; even so, he was able to come to realizations that only come in solitude and silence. These are the experiences that are only available when crossing a certain threshold of consciousness and one becomes aware of their world in a wholly new and different way. He reported that the reintegration is tricky, only those who have been successful in the process themselves are able to truly help those in the same predicament. This is an application of a form of personal authenticity.

An Inuit healer in Alaska told him of a similar adventure into the silence. At the time of their conversation, this particular fellow was in trouble with his community. These are the spiritual leaders of the community, so they often bear the brunt of the tribe’s dissatisfaction, suspicion and jealousy. This particular fellow had developed a number of sleight of hand, trick devices and mythological scare tactics to keep the people at bay and in awe. Rasmussen saw through this fakery and asked him, “Is there nothing that you truly believe in, anything that is honest and sincere in your life or is it all about this hocus pocus?’ The fellow replies “ I have to protect myself with this hocus pocus, but, I will tell you what is True. I have heard the voice of the Universe, it is gentle, it is kind, it is like a mother speaking, like the fall of the snow, like children laughing and playing. What it says is, ‘Do not be afraid of the Universe’”.

The Practice of Medicine

Tue, 13 May 2008 00:14:21 GMT

The practice of medicine is an extension of the sociocultural worldview from which it springs.
The many different sociocultural worldviews that our ancestors perceived their world through, as well as the various such worldviews that we still perceive our modern world through, provide us with an incredible level of beautiful diversity.

Each culture has forged their very own path to Truth; few of us ever have or ever will make it all the way to a universal Truth.
Our forging ahead, standing on the shoulders of our ancestors, is what brings us closer to that universal truth than has ever been possible before. I believe that it is our penchant for short-sightedness that keeps us from realizing that Truth and seeing it for what it is.

For example, we have a greater understanding in this modern age of the human body and its relationship to its environment than ever before, yet, we pollute that environment to a greater degree than ever before. With all of our great advances in understanding, we have allowed lack of wisdom and denial to rob us of a more complete manifestation of a better quality of life.

The point being that modern humankind is the product of human evolution through the ancient cultures that we so admire; we are what is left of them. To single out any certain tradition carries with it the implication that that tradition is better or worse, more complete or less complete than any other tradition. Nothing could be further from the truth, in fact, the popularity of traditions such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine may well be because they are traditions that are still alive. These systems of medicine are not the same as they were a hundred years ago, much less a thousand years ago. The essential philosophy may remain intact but the application of that philosophy is always altered as it is practiced through a specific sociocultural construct. To that end, modern Ayurveda is not going to be practiced in the same way in Tibet, India and the United States. To attempt to create a standardized practice that would transcend those sociocultural constraints would be absurd, even if the physician could grasp the concepts, the patient would be at a major disadvantage; they would require a certain level of cultural training that would, likely, be quite foreign for them.

As it is, a practitioner does their best work when they are able to establish rapport with the patient and engage that person in the process of healing. A greater sense of value is perceived by creating an atmosphere and circumstances that allow the possibility for a person to encounter the Divine through this process and to establish a deeper sense of meaning and import for their own lives. It is also what often makes the difference between a curable and an incurable condition.

Radical and Timeless Truth

Mon, 12 May 2008 12:51:26 GMT

Consider stepping backwards through time to approximately 5000 BC when portions of the largely hunter-gatherer populations of the earth began dwelling together. These original locations were those that were particularly favored by nature to have abundant resources that could support larger populations of all sorts of creatures. Incredibly important locations for the formation of human communities were Mesopotamia, nurtured and fed by the rich Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, Egypt, likewise nourished by the Nile river valley, the Sarasvati and Indus river valleys in India, the Danube in Europe, and the Mississippi river valley of North America, the Amazon in South America. As people came together in unprecedented numbers, information was able to be shared regarding the use of certain modalities for the treatment of certain disease states. The proximity of so many people with differing skills allowed for a certain specialization to develop within society. Those members of society who were particularly adept at growing food, could do so and barter for other amenities necessary for their quality of life. Likewise, those people who were adept at hunting could do so; in fact, the specialties of herding, sewing, building, food preparation, healing and teaching all were able to progress at unprecedented speeds because people and resources were suddenly available for that to happen. The field of medicine fell into the domain of the doctor/priest specialty. These members of society became repositories for the collected understandings and anecdotal evidence of what plant or substance would be most appropriate for certain disorders. Humans are inherently curious creatures with a yearning for union with something greater than themselves. This yearning comes with a desire for some sense of meaning in our lives, the numerous Gods and Goddesses that inhabited the natural world were given the credit and blame for certain fortunes and misfortunes that would befall people. Imagine the great enlightenment that would have occurred when these priest/doctors began to realize that the stars in the heavens moved at a predictable rate, and that certain phenomenon might be related to the stars being in certain positions. Suddenly humans could anticipate when the rivers would flood; they could begin to piece together generations of chronological information regarding the migration of food animals and the harvesting of food crops. Naturally, this would have been seen as a great manifestation of the divine in this world; it was a predictable manifestation of the divine that allowed lowly humans to be able to look into the mind of the creative force of the universe. The systems of medicine that evolved during this time had to be empirical at first, then, as a greater understanding of the surrounding world unfolded, certain predictions could be made. For example, bubonic plague breaks out; it might be perceived as a plague placed on the region by the Egyptian Goddess Bastet, a Goddess associated with cats. Treatment might consist of the consumption of plants blessed by Bastet, as well as an appropriate sacrifice to the local members of the cat family, or it may be bringing one of these animals into your home and taking care of it. By so appeasing Bastet, she relieves your residence of the plague. A treatment that works once tends to be repeated. Over thousands of years certain treatments, modified slightly over time, become the mainstay of medical practice. Nevermind that the cat was eating the rats which carried a flea that, in turn, carried a microscopic creature that may have caused the disease.

The relatively more stable civilizations were able to create very elaborate and amazingly complete systems of medicine still in use today. Those areas that were less stable, more prone to conquest and revolution, created like systems of medicine that were abandoned or aggressively modified as these regions experienced upheavals. The development of medical practice progressed hand in hand with the development of spiritual practice and an ever more sophisticated worldview. As differently as our modern eyes might see the traditional medical systems of China, India and North America, I would contend that there are similarities that transcend the respective ethnic differences of these cultures. It goes beyond the scope of this discussion to go into great detail comparing and contrasting the world’s ancient medical traditions, but I do think that we can glean some essential and universal truths from our ancestors with a cursory overview. Our quest in this overview is a radically timeless Truth, a fundamental understanding of the world around us as well as our relationship to it. Such a Truth could never be adequately captured in any single set of doctrines or ideas, but rather, by stepping outside of that paradigm we gain a different insight into that Truth. Our modern medical paradigm is not immune to this necessity. Our current understandings are a result of certain cultural evolutions that have their roots in these ancient traditions. Within the field of herbal medicine there is a tendency to glorify yesterday; to see a greater wisdom available in the past than in the present; to eulogize ancient Egypt, China, and India. Our obligation as herbalists, with the daunting task of preserving what is construed in many medical circles as an outdated and archaic practice of medicine, is to ensure that the botanical medicine that we practice in this modern age continues the evolution in understanding that began over 5000 years ago. What we are striving for is a radical and timeless Truth, an understanding that transcends place and time. When we find it, it will be True whenever and wherever it may be employed.

Encountering the Divine

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:18:15 GMT

This is my very first Livejournal post. It is with a certain degree of reluctance that I begin this process...it seems so...not private.

My decision to begin posting in this kind of forum is largely the result of a suggestion from a friend and because I began feeling that it was time that I participate in some of the forums within which, I have previously been lurking (some of them for, literally, years).

I am a Naturopathic Physician, trained in a number of different therapeutic modalities, and fascinated by the many facets and processes involved in healing. I am especially interested in delving into that part of our collective consciousness that allows for non-ordinary healing. Probing the marginalized edges of what we know "should" happen and the events that "do" happen that cause us to have to redefine those margins of our understanding.

Since the beginnings of human history, people all over our planet have found insight about themselves and their place in the world by means of spiritual quests. Illness and the accompanying desperate search for meaning within that illness quite often provide the impetus for such journeys of self-discovery. One criterion for a successful journey is to discover the psyche’s mysterious images as they lie in the underworld of the soul and to reconcile these revelations to the life that one is leading. All too often in our modern world, it is a discrepancy between what we know is right and true and how we might be living our life that results in dis-ease. Those of us who practice nature-based medicine and spirituality may have an obligation to hold ourselves to a certain higher standard in this realm, largely because we have the opportunity to be the standard bearers for a legitimate path back to authenticity, back to a reconciliation between what we are sure is right and how to live healthily in this world. The context of healthy living is established by the culture that we participate in; the possibility of finding an authentic spiritual path is not necessarily as dependent on that cultural context. Within any sociocultural atmosphere there can be a distinct difference between what marks a legitimate spiritual path and what marks an authentic spiritual path. Legitimacy is largely determined by what is considered right and acceptable by the majority of the individuals within that socio-cultural structure. Authenticity in a spiritual path is largely determined by the transformational potential that is inherent in that spiritual walk. It may be a legitimate spiritual path to go to church three times a week, if that activity does not produce lasting change inside of one’s self, it may not be an authentic spiritual walk. On the other hand, an individual who is engaged in a solitary spiritual practice that allows them to continually evolve and create lasting positive change within their own lives and the lives of those around them may be following an authentic but not socio-culturally legitimate path.

This distinction between legitimacy and authenticity is well established in the sociology of religion and spirituality, see Huston Smith’s classic “World Religions”. An interesting aside, many of the legitimate religious paths in the modern world were started as non-legitimate but authentic spiritual paths—consider Jesus Christ, Gautama Buddha, and Mohammed. Mysticism began these great movements, dogmatism has largely been responsible for keeping them going. They possess a continued appeal because they provide a framework of understanding the intangible elements of life that we all feel exist but in the absence of consistent, concrete forms we tend to forget. The mystical experience is that reminder of the intangible spirit realm that is ever present but often forgotten. In many cases it is an event, or series of events, in a person’s life that is so affirming of the presence of spirit that it has the ability to alter the entire course of one’s life path. In general, the mystical experience implies a union with something greater than one’s self, out of this union comes the realization that all separation is an illusion. Ken Wilber, in his latest book, “Integral Spirituality”, describes four distinct types of mystical experience. Nature mysticism is the experience of one-ness with the natural world, Deity mysticism is the experience of one-ness with a deity, formless mysticism is that experience of one-ness with the causal, un-manifested state, and non-dual mysticism is the state of one-ness with all phenomena as it arises. When we discuss the possibility of “Encountering the Divine” we are, I believe, discussing this spectrum of mystical experience.

In much the same way that we talk about the legitimacy vs. authenticity of a spiritual process, there is an appropriateness to discussing different modes of healing within the same perspectives. The dominant medical paradigm represents a legitimized view of how healing can happen. It is only an authentic approach when it actually helps one achieve healing. Just because a disease can be “cured” doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual has experienced “healing”. Curing a disease state means that an objective measure of the process shows that it is gone, that is, the blood test is normal, the MRI or X-ray is normal, and the person is not going to die from that affliction. Healing implies that the person has engaged the process of recovery in such a way that they are made better for it, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. What difference does it make? Within the clinical setting the job is to get the individual from point A to point B—the diagnosis is strep throat, two weeks of penicillin, the strep throat is gone. The clinical approach is cut and dried and based on a double blind placebo controlled study. Should a health care practitioner even waste the time and money of the patient to discuss something as seemingly trivial as their emotional orientation to their condition? Is it relevant that Mrs. Jones feels emotionally that she doesn’t have a voice in her relationship, that she feels that she isn’t being heard and that she has had a diagnosed strep throat on her husband's birthday for the past 5 years? Not only does it matter, but what is the appropriate ethical position for a healthcare practitioner to take? A ten dollar penicillin prescription once a year may seem a small price to pay to maintain harmony in the family and keep the status quo. Perhaps the real price is what we might call a Domestic Martyrdom.