 (Editor: this guest article is a critique of modern medicine by a doctor who is also one of the leading thinkers in the development of modern naturopathic practice. Dr Koehler also suggests some new directions for medical thinking and practice. Some of the ideas may seem new and radical but they are all likely to be part of the Health Care of the future as orthodox research and practice continues to struggle to deal with chronic illness. The first part of the article outlines the problems, the second addresses one particularly effective solution. You may need to read some paragraphs more than once to get the gist of the arguments, but I think it will be worth it. Please let me have feedback.)
Many health professionals are showing an interest in natural healing methods, because they have noticed that orthodox medicine does not get them very far in treating chronic diseases. Assuming that these professionals are motivated by a desire to help their patients more effectively this means that in the future, more and more "natural" methods will be prescribed instead of antibiotics, pain killers etc. This is definitely progress -but is it natural medicine?
Isn't this really just a case of orthodox medicine with a veneer of naturopathic or complementary methods -an orthodox medicinal wolf in naturopathic sheep's clothing? The same doctors who used to prescribe drugs now use natural remedies for the same indications. But the thought process of orthodox medicine remains unchanged, namely, linear cause-and-effect thinking or substituting rather than regenerating.
One really can't blame these colleagues, since this is simply how they have been taught to think! Those of us who have attended naturopathic/wholistic seminars and symposia are forced to admit that a genuinely naturopathic attitude is quite rare. (editor's note : throughout this article you can take naturopathic to mean wholistic, i.e. searching beneath the symptoms) . Yet it is not that difficult to get to know this new way of thinking, which is based on structured networks and multi-causal orientation. However, health professionals need to talk a common language if they are to be able to communicate effectively with each other.
This is a significant problem, in fact. Up to now, naturopathy has often taken the same diagnoses as orthodox medicine (for example in Medical Herbalism) and used them to describe the symptoms. But this means -in the new view -that only symptoms are being described!
In the naturopathic view, a wholistic diagnosis has four components:
the cardinal symptom
the underlying chronic stress factors, including mental state
the patient's physical constitution and predisposing factors
the triggering factor
The cardinal symptom corresponds to the orthodox diagnosis, with the difference that we do not feel obliged to give a special name, say, to a pain projection, such as "periarthritis".
The cardinal symptom is the visible expression, i.e. the projection, of the underlying cause. Its information is very important to us, since this is where the actual unknown buried problem is presented to the organism on the sensory level, i.e. made visible or perceptible. This should make one aware that a problem exists, that a warning has been issued. The body speaks to us in a subtle coded language. Energetically this would be revealed in particular pathological frequency patterns (lacking fluctuation, high coherence).
But often we do not have to search long to find the origin: a conglomeration of chronic stresses, with which every person is in some way burdened and which project themselves on this weak point of the organism.
Orthodox medicine designates the body's reaction to the high degree of chronic stress as a symptom. One can only agree with this if there is no underlying cause that needs to be looked for. But what does this disease symptom in fact mean? It is the organism's attempt to free itself of the actual (multiple) causes. In other words: what the orthodox doctor describes as the disease is actually the healing reaction, the body's attempt to heal itself.
Therefore it is absolutely incomprehensible why nowadays these diseases are not supported but instead suppressed. The chronic sick person does not improve for the simple reason that the immune system is unable to carry out the healing process on its own. In these cases, metabolic processes are often blocked and the regulatory systems exhausted.
Now, if the "antis" of the naturopathic camp prescribe botanical preparations simply to eliminate symptoms as quickly as possible, then they are repeating the same old mistakes, and causes are still being neglected.
Chronic stress is a very individualized matter. Each person totes around his own bundle of burden. However, chronic stress must be able to establish itself in the organism in order to affect it, and this depends on the individual constitution.
Besides bodily strength and weakness, constitution also includes mental and psychological state, i.e. what we generally refer to as the mind, or soul. Therefore, the kind of chronic stress that can affect a person depends on their overall state, their innate and acquired weaknesses.
This overall state -which is, as we have said, highly individualized -represents a stand-off between the immune system (which reflects constitutional uniqueness) and chronic stress factors. For if there had been a good defense mechanism in the first place, the disease symptoms would not have developed, but would have healed up.
But we all know that a person can feel well despite chronic stress. Most of the time this is even regarded as a healthy state. So often, seemingly out of nowhere, we see an illness can break out; but there must have been a triggering factor. Unfortunately the trigger, the fourth point of the wholistic diagnosis, is very often confused with the reason for the illness. In the case of allergies, for example, this occurs quite frequently.
Orthodox medicine uses linear cause-and-effect thinking, and most of the time calls the allergens the cause. Unfortunately, many naturopaths also share this viewpoint. Yet allergies, like mycoses (fungal infections), are only cardinal symptoms of severe terrain damage caused all the usual stress factors.
One's ability to compensate for chronic stress is again dependent on one's constitution, which brings us full circle. The goal of wholistic therapy should be the reduction of chronic stress factors, because only this is causal therapy. Dealing only with the triggering factor is just superficial symptomatology, but the trigger still performs an important function, because it presents an interface.
A triggering factor can only become one if a "theatre of war" has been established. There has arisen within the body (for some reason) a conflict with certain substances, which the body then rejects. But this means disharmony with nature, the environment. Therefore the goal should not be to keep these "enemies" away from the organism, but to make peace with them again. In order to achieve this, the organism first has to be brought around to a position from which, strengthened and full of self-confidence, it can again be tolerant. This means cleansing the terrain and energetic stabilization. Under these new optimized conditions, the triggering factor is presented again and again until reconciliation is achieved. Details of this therapeutic procedure will be given later on.
But pathophysiology also has to be carefully taken into account. Orthodox medicine subdivides the organism diagnostically into smaller and smaller details, but denies the interaction of the individual components. Naturopathy presupposes a unity, but often lumps too much together by assuming that absolutely everything is connected to everything else. This is only part of the truth, because it ignores hierarchy, the natural law of order. We are of the opinion that body, spirit and mind form an integrated whole, but this does not exclude the reality of existing differences. Within the organism, systemic regions are clearly demarcated from each other, interconnected only by their interfaces.
Each system in the body forms an integrated whole which operates as autonomously as possible. One can see this clearly in the circulatory system. If it were an open system, it would have to be refilled continuously with blood, which would be escaping elsewhere. But the circulatory system, for example, does not have anything to do with the nervous system. Nevertheless, at the interface junctions there is functional contact, as when blood pressure is regulated. The interface of the nervous system and the hormonal system is in the hypothalamus and in the matrix, respectively. Chronic diseases, which we think of as "blocked" healing reactions, should be investigated to determine, at which level the blockades need to be searched for and removed.
At this point, many people will surely object that orthodox medicine does exactly this with all of its often considerable technical resources. This is absolutely correct. But what is crucial is the interpretation of the results and the therapy derived from them. In addition, there is something vitally important to keep in mind, namely that there are virtual energetic regulatory systems underlying all of the physiological systems. These regulatory systems are primarily responsible for any disturbances that may crop up. Therefore this is of special interest to us. We are dealing here with cybernetic regulatory circuits.
Another important point to be discussed is polarity. This sounds almost philosophical, yet wholistic practitioners should be not just doctors, but also psychologists, philosophers and theologians. Then, polarity will seem like something self-evident, which we encounter continually in our daily work. Every instant, materials are created many times over, only to decay again in the next. This is an everyday phenomenon, which quantum physicists have been dealing with for a while. In reality, material structures are quite unstable.
During all these miniature creations, polar matter develops out of energy (units). Photons (light quanta) become positrons and electrons. Energy becomes mass. Polarity arises out of unity. But we also experience this in the macrocosm with the creation of man. The immortal spirit brings forth our soul and body.
In all these creations, natural creative forces are at work, which form and create structures. That is why they are also called formative and creative forces. These forces underlie virtually all observable natural phenomena. They obey a spiritual principle.
Thus, creative forces are unipolar, but as such, they regulate polarity. That is what the ancient Chinese designated as Yin and Yang. A balance between polar forces results in health. Any shifting of the balance leads to disorders. Turning it around, in every disease case, one can determine that a balance has shifted, which needs to be recompensed by effective therapy. By this description, it makes sense that treatment needs to be oriented to the forces and not to the material basis, which is merely the consequence of the tug-of-war between opposing forces.
Change can only be effected via creative forces. Yet, in order to be able to do this, Yin and Yang have to be reunited. By so doing, "the creative forces are set free in their totality and made perceptible. That is, both polarities have to be taken into consideration at the same time. The whole system known as man is - like any natural creation - oriented to creative forces. Desired changes can only be achieved by overlapping "negative" creative forces with "positive" ones. According to Burkhart Heim, they are probably eight-dimensional, of which the first through fourth dimensions (time-space continuum) are manifested first by them. Unity arises as a result of combining polarities -and then unity enables the creation of a new polar relationship.
The creation of something "new" -the healing process- can only be initiated from "above". This corresponds to the dormant spiritual potential in each of us. The unification process means "filling up the octave space". This is a concept derived from music, in which we only add what is necessary for the creation of a closed unity, and no more. This is important because, viewed from outside, a unity is neutral and the system resides at its center.
It has already been mentioned above that all material changes can be ascribed to disturbances in the superordinate energetic regulatory level. Therefore, we are here primarily concerned with energetic considerations, and, as a therapeutic measure, filling up the octave space has to be understood in this context as well. In actual practice we would first try to determine the level that the disturbance is situated on which is actually responsible for the current pathological state. Since we are here concerned with regulatory levels, the areas to look at are: the hormone system (metabolism) in conjunction with the nervous system, mineral and vitamin balance (sounding-board), enzyme synthesis (DNA blockage) and other system levels.
Secondly, we have to look for ways to affect these levels therapeutically in a positive way. To repeat: we can intervene in regulatory processes by energetic means. By this avenue, information is introduced that is familiar to the organism, i.e. that it can cope with.
If, in a particular case, we come to feel that the cause of a chronic disease is a metabolic blockade, then we will take a closer look at this level. If we now wish to put these theoretical expositions into practice, we need to take a look at the polar-acting hormones, the regulators, as argued in detail 15 years ago in Schole's Three Component Theory. This directly mirrors the polar action of the regulators. In this polarity, i.e. in the octave space, we will find (test out) the corresponding arrangement, which can then eliminate the metabolic blockade.
This sounds all very abstract and probably not very convincing to the average reader. But the principle mentioned above is an absolutely new therapeutic principle, which has already been employed to great success with many patients. This is Systems Information Therapy (SIT) which is, to be sure, technical-device-oriented- (which might upset some dyed-in-the-wool naturopathic practitioners) but which opens up entirely new vistas in medicine. The first implementation of this new system is the VEGA SIT, a metabolic test and therapy device. With its help, we can now ensure that the constant readaptation of the metabolism to all incoming external stimuli, which is necessary to remain healthy, is fully functional, whereby the blocked healing reaction (= chronic illness) can resume its normal course. For the organism this means adequate synthesis of metabolites and a sufficient supply of energy. Under these optimum conditions (after a number of treatments) the original triggering factor (the "enemy") is once again introduced, so that the organism can again make peace with it.
This new concept, since proven valid in hundreds of cases, can also be transferred to other systemic areas.
Right now, this system is brand new, yet its initial successes are clear and convincing. The naturopathic practitioner's basic concept -experience-confirms this theoretical concept, which, however, also represents the reverse conclusion. After all, the above-named developments derive from tradition, from a rich body of experience. In this case, the intent was to analyze the regularities which underlie all effective treatment procedures, to generalize from them and to apply them to the body's own systemic regions. This is the essence of genuine science.
This therapy of necessity involves the use of electronic instruments. This does not cast doubt on the patient-centered approach, which is still vital. On the contrary: by talking with the practitioner, the patient learns about a completely new kind of treatment which points the way to new methods which were not hitherto feasible.
It is a mistake to focus exclusively, as some naturopaths do, on the "authentic" naturopathic treatment methods - the so-called classical ones - to the deliberate exclusion of "whatever else there may be out there", such as the bioelectronic methods. To do this is to pass up a great opportunity.
For naturopathy has at its disposal a great potential that nobody can take away and that orthodox medicine does not have : several hundred years' experience, and in some systems several thousand years. Only that which has stood the test of time can incorporate healing principles, which are in harmony with nature and can therefore be effective at all. This applies to Kneipp just as much as it does to cupping, for example. But these basic laws should be developed and expanded by modern research, in order to come up with new therapeutic methods adapted to the chronic ailments of our times. Futhermore, new technical developments can most definitely be called into service, and the incorporation of new knowledge can proceed along modern electronic pathways.
We should exhibit much more self-confidence vis-a-vis orthodox medicine, which does not have this long tradition to look back on. Quite the opposite: what is today celebrated as the latest scientific wisdom is tomorrow outmoded. One example is the wearisome cholesterol controversy. At one point, one was supposed to avoid butter in order to lower blood cholesterol levels -later, butter was OK again. It was forgotten in all of this hubbub that cholesterol has an important defensive function because it seals off cells and is therefore necessary. Thus, if it is high (according to Selye, cholesterol levels rise in the countershock phase), one should be on the lookout for chronic inflammation as the actual cause. Schole's Three Component Theory tells us that excess carbohydrate consumption is responsible for an increase in the cholesterol level. Fat consumption unaccompanied by carbohydrates is metabolized (oxidized) immediately, i.e. turned into energy. Nevertheless, billions have been spent worldwide on research into the erroneous doctrines of the orthodox school.
Then there are the studies on the effectiveness of certain chemotherapeutic agents on cancer patients. These "scientific" statistics are used as the basis of new treatment concepts. And yet, all these studies are wrong! Why? According to a survey, nearly every cancer patient seeks out supplementary relief from a naturopathic physician or practitioner. They there undergo immune strengthening treatments which then become, incognito as it were, part of the official studies. Therefore, it is not possible to speak of the orthodox position as being scientific at all.
As a closing summary of the above exposition, the following can be derived:
The basic principle of all these therapeutic effects is the tracing back of the development of a disease process to its original cause. In this manner, as when plucking off flower petals one by one, hidden information is gradually revealed. This information is the vibratory picture (frequency spectra) of the creative forces. This is the true wholistic approach.
Since the various phases of a disease are pathological processes, we also have to assume pathological processes, we also have to assume pathological oscillation patterns and likewise pathological formative forces. When we have reached the root cause, new physiological formative forces can effect a restitutio ad integrum, a complete healing.
This is precisely what happens when one finds the right kind of therapy (or, in homeopathy, the Similimum). The biological clock is turned back and the remedy itself already contains the information for tissue renewal. Genuine healing works in this manner, at the same time bringing about a change in outlook. What one can perceive here directly in the case of homeopathy can also be seen, ultimately, with all other successful naturopathic methods. The principle is ever the same.
This exposition is intended to demonstrate that naturopathic procedures do not represent musty old therapies incapable of further development, but that - quite the contrary -they can yield new and important clues for medicine and for the treatment of chronic diseases. But these starting points and stimuli have to be developed, put into practice and further developed. To this belongs, besides scientific research, "modernized" training for interested parties -training which doesn't limit itself to the tried-and-true classical naturopathic procedures, but which also incorporates the body of thought of modern science, in particular that of quantum physics.
In summary, we can present the most important aspects as follows:
1. Since it is based on proven traditions and methods, naturopathy has the potential to provide important stimuli for the further development of medicine. The scientific basis for the effectiveness of the various methods is secondary and of less importance for success.
2. A great opportunity waits in the scientific investigation of the effective principles, in order that we may derive laws for future therapeutic concepts, which are adapted to the needs of our times.
3. We already have some solid results, but they have yet to become mainstream knowledge, since the theory is, unfortunately, still too beholden to orthodox medicine and makes, at best, tentative and feeble efforts to chart an independent course.
4. Multicausal thinking in networked structures instead of deductive thinking in linear causal chains is also a part of any genuine naturopathic understanding.
5. The concept of diagnosis, which in the orthodox camp merely describes a symptom, needs to be expanded to a wholistic-style diagnosis, encompassing cardinal symptom, underlying cause (multifactorial chronic stress), constitution (including mental state) and the triggering factor.
6. The (superficial) cause, e.g. the allergen, must not be confused with the actual
underlying causes (chronic stress). The goal is greater tolerance to the triggering
factor thanks to a sturdier constitution.
7. Chronic diseases need to be investigated for functional disorders in specific
systemic areas. Systems represent functional units that are interconnected via
interfaces.
8. The energetic interplay of forces, which is responsible for all developments and
changes in tissue has to be given primary attention. In this context, it is important
that polarity receives full consideration. This means that agonists and antagonists
(to which also belong the creative forces) and their interplay need to be sought out
and observed.
9. At this point, planned research is still pointed in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, the persons responsible often lack an understanding of the quantum-physical aspects of reality, as is demonstrated throughout the world by many a research group. But today's problems cannot be solved with yesterday's thought patterns.
So: what are we waiting for, considering the rising number of chronic and increasingly therapy-resistant diseases? If the orthodox camp, with its steady supply of new suppressive pharmaceuticals, cannot lead us out of our dilemma, then it is up to us to prepare the way.
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