This is the first in a series of articles that I will be presenting that focuses on some of Nature’s Laws of Health and Disease and explains their enduring relevance in this new reality that we all find ourselves having to adapt to.
Given the virulence of COVID-19, we find ourselves in an extraordinary circumstance that beckons society to become reacquainted with Nature’s Laws of Health and Disease. Although defending against and treating this viral infection requires new understandings and creative therapeutic responses, Nature’s fundamental Laws of Health and Disease, articulated in traditional naturopathy over a century ago, are immutable.
These laws should always serve as the guideposts for any preventive protocol designed to reduce susceptibility to corona virus infection, or to enhance recovery power as part of an integrative, therapeutic response to said infection.
It is important to understand that serious viral infections tend to weaken the organs or tissues they concentrate in. Thus, once the symptoms of acute viral infection abate, the therapeutic focus should shift from defense to reconstituting the body’s internal terrain, rectifying bioenergy deficiency and imbalance and revitalizing weakened organs.
Several decades ago, the realm of the natural healing arts began to transform. While the use of many of the techniques and substances historically employed in the various natural healing arts has persisted, the theoretical basis for their employment has largely shifted from one that emerges organically from an understanding of Nature’s Laws of Health and Disease to the conventional medical perspective regarding disease causation and treatment focus. This has contributed to a serious decline in the level of understanding regarding the true nature of health and disease.
Human life is dependent upon the presence of certain fundamental conditions: proper diet; pure water; fresh air; sunlight; adequate exercise, warmth, rest and sleep; emotional harmony; proper posture.
As a human being, you have an inherent relationship with these fundamental elements—susceptibility to disease is primarily an outgrowth of a deficiency or excess of one or more of them. Restoration of health in the ill person is accomplished through the same means of sustaining life and preserving health in the well person.
If said fundamental elements are not restored, surgery and drugs (even natural medicines such as herbs and homeopathy) can only act upon the superficial symptoms of the underlying disharmony which, if left unresolved, may eventually manifest in some other, and perhaps more threatening, form.
Conventional Medical Perspective of Health and Disease
1) Doctrine of Specific Cause (most prominently the Germ Theory) – Exclusion of the person.
There is no question that COVID-19 is triggered by a viral infection that needs to be directly confronted. However the prevailing idea projected by the medical establishment and media thus far has been that there are no natural health-creation measures worth considering that have the potential to provide additional layers of protection from the virus. This idea is based on a the deeply ingrained notion that the tenets and clinical approaches of natural medicine, often based upon centuries of empirical data, lacks scientific credibility. Of course, that view is rooted in a very narrow, self-serving definition of the word scientific.
How many people could have been saved, if their initial, milder symptoms were treated aggressively with natural medicines and techniques such as: a cleansing diet dominated by fresh fruits and vegetables to help maintain purity of the blood and lymphatics and assist the functions of the excretory organs; strategic nutrient supplementation; relevant herbs and essential oils; cell salts and other types of homeopathic remedies; flower remedies and gemstone essences; hydrotherapies (in response to fever and to strengthen resisting and recovery power), ozone therapy, sunbathing, etc.?
Instead, people presenting with serious symptoms are prioritized, while those just beginning to present with COVID-19 symptoms are often turned away from hospitals without any guidance except – “stay away from others and come see us when it seems that your symptoms have taken a sharp downturn.”
Louis Pasteur’s germ theory, which has dominated allopathic medicine for 150 years, focuses exclusively on the germ rather than the inner terrain of the body, whose corruption provides a medium within which an invading pathogen can thrive.
Biologist Claude Bernard, a famous contemporary of Pasteur, argued that it was the corrupted terrain that was the core issue, with the germ simply being opportunistic. Bernard described how it is the degradation of the milieu intérieur or terrain (referring to the intercellular fluids that serve as the internal environment in which the cells of the body are nourished and maintained in a state of equilibrium), that makes the human body especially susceptible to microbial infection.
Pasteur ultimately came to recognize that Claude Bernard was right. On his deathbed, Pasteur commented: “Bernard was right; the pathogen is nothing; the terrain is everything.”
2) Disease is a random process – victim consciousness. In other words, chance is a central factor regarding whether or not an individual becomes infected by a pathogenic microbe. Accordingly, the phenomenon of one of two people of the same age and relative health status, who have both observed social distancing, wearing a face mask, etc., becomes infected but the other does not is largely chalked up to chance or some unknown factor that science has not yet identified. However, doesn’t it seem logical, that a difference in the condition of the internal terrain of these two individual’s may have been the determining factor?
3) The nature of disease is complex- beyond the comprehension of the layperson – only medical doctors can understand it. Leads to ceding of power to doctors.
During this pandemic, medical doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers have performed courageously and have served as an absolutely essential bulwark against a far greater health catastrophe. Modern medicine, with its lab testing, emergency medicine and critical care, is a central, critical component of the response to this pandemic.
However, people can do much on their own to build up their body’s resisting power and recovery power. In so doing, they cannot only reduce their risk of infection but also, by doing so, reduce the enormous burden that has severely challenged the operational capacity of the healthcare system.
4) Pathology (the science that investigates abnormal functions or diseases of the human body) is given primacy over physiology (the branch of biology that deals with the normal functions of the human body).
Of course, there needs to be a focus on the direct control of disease symptoms, especially when those symptoms can become life-threatening. Yet, there needs to be a parallel effort at health-creation — the building up of the body’s vital nutrient and biochemical reserves (including antioxidants, anti-infection agents, anti-inflammatory nutrients and adaptogens)and bioenergy system that sustain the organism’s immunological resisting power.
5) The role of the doctor is considered to be more important than the role of Nature. More oriented toward intervention than prevention.
Rather than the power to cure coming from the body’s own innate intelligence and “inner physician,” it is viewed as coming from without delivered by the intelligence of another human being. Modern medical science prides itself on its total reliance on objective data subsequently processed exclusively by thought consciousness.
However, there are actually four windows of knowing with thought consciousness being only one of these windows. The four windows of knowing are: Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, and Connection to Spirit. As the latter three windows of knowing are largely ignored, or considered wholly unreliable, in modern medical practice, it is up to each person in his or her own home, to include the windows of knowing of feeling, sensing and connection to spirit into his or her health equation. Clinical decisions made purely upon thought-data often run the risk of being sub-optimal ones.
A person who commits to a disciplined focus upon natural diet and supplementation, daily exercise (e.g., walking, yoga, chi kung, etc.), breathing exercises, herbal medicines and essential oils, skin-brushing, immune strengthening hydrotherapies, judicious sunbathing, moxa, connection to one’s real self, etc. begins to sink deep roots into the power of the natural world. Only then can his or her internal rhythms be synchronized with the those of the natural universe. This recalibration enables that individual to develop more dynamic resisting power and the level of health-consciousness required to best navigate the treacherous waters of this new reality.
Next article: Volume 1 #2: Disease Proneness Equation: Ratio Between the Levels of Environmental Challenge and Resisting Power.
Disclaimer: This article is intended as an educational tool, and not as a prescription. Seek the advice of your health-care provider before discontinuing any medication and/or trying any new remedy or technique.
