Basic Assumptions - Philosophy of Natural Healing
Compiled by Sue Staropoli, M.A.

"Our Life Energy is the source of our physical and mental well-being, of glowing health, of the joy of living." - (Your Body Doesn't Lie - p. 54)

"Symptoms" of Health:
Health, in a human being, is the perfection of bodily organization, intellectual energy, and moral power.
Health is the fullest expression of all the faculties and passions of man, acting together in perfect harmony.
Health is entire freedom from pain of body and discordance of mind.
Health is beauty, energy, purity, holiness, happiness.
Health is that condition in which man is highest known expression of the power and goodness of his Maker.
When a man is perfect in his own nature, body, and soul, perfect in their harmonious adaptations and action, and living in perfect harmony with nature, with his fellow man, and with God, he may be said to be in a state of health." - (Esoteric Anthropology - p.227)

"90% of pain is the result of tension, stress, worry, idleness, boredom, frustration, suppressed rage, insufficient sleep, overeating, poorly balanced diet, smoking, excessive drinking, inadequate exercise, stale air, or any of the other countless abuses encountered by the human body in modern society. The most ignored fact of all about pain is that the best way to eliminate it is to eliminate the abuse. Instead we reach almost instinctively for the painkillers… " (Anatomy of an Illness - p. 90)

"The human mind can be trained to play an important part both in preventing disease and in overcoming it when it occurs." (Anatomy of an Illness p. 118)

"One of the main functions of the doctor is to engage to the fullest the patient's own ability to mobilize the forces of mind and body in turning back disease… Understanding of the powerful recuperative and regenerative forces possessed by the human body under conditions of proper nourishment and reasonable freedom from stress." (Anatomy of an Illness p.126)

The human being has a built-in mechanism for repairing itself… (Anatomy of an Illness p. 145)

"Our bodies were created with a certain type of intelligence and that given half a chance, our bodies will maintain its natural balance. …When we're sick we're out of balance… In working with Natural health, what we do is to change the environment of the body: make the body a place that encourages health rather than disease." - (Herbology course - lesson 1 p.5)

"A symptom is your body's natural attempt to heal itself. When we use herbs or drugs to simply get rid of a symptom, we are not addressing the problem, we are just making ourselves more comfortable… The only thing that can stop a natural function of the body is a poison. Most symptoms are signs of natural functioning of the body, so that's why drugs work to stop the symptom" (not to cure the underlying cause). e.g. eating a piece of bad fish - our body tries to get rid of it through vomiting or diarrhea - but we take medications to stop those natural bodily symptoms that are trying to remove the real problem." (Herbology course - lesson 1 pp.19-21)

Holistic approach to keeping the body in balance: Nutrition, Elimination, Exercise, Lifestyle

5 Essentials for life: Oxygen, Water, Nutrition, Energy/exercise, Rest/sleep

"5 Things a cell needs to stay alive and healthy: Constant supply of oxygen, constant supply of nutrients, constant temperature, sufficient water, efficient waste removal" (Herbology course - lesson 12, p. 657)

"Many physical disorders are caused by repressed, unconscious feelings." (The Mindbody Prescription)

"Traditional Western medicine has been focused on curing disease. Now that view is changing. Medical professionals are becoming convinced that health care should emphasize prevention of illness rather than its cure… Taking measures to avoid sickness before it occurs can result in better overall health." (Nikken Wellness Journal, p.1 - Kendall Cho)

"The fact that the mind rules the body is, in spite of its neglect by biology and medicine, the most fundamental fact which we know about the process of life." (Love, Medicine and Miracles, p. 1)

"Of all the balances the human body strives to maintain, the most crucial one is between acid and base (or alkaline)… Over-acidification of body fluid and tissues underlies all disease, and general "dis-ease" as well… It is only when it is acidic that the body is vulnerable to germs - in healthy base balance, germs can't get a foothold… Furthermore, acids are the expression of all sickness and disease… good health requires a body in proper acid/base balance… The relationship between acid and base is scientifically quantified on a scale of 1 to 14 know as 'pH'." (The pH Miracle: Balance Your Diet, Reclaim Your Health - p. 13)

"Good digestion is critical for good health. The human body requires efficient digestion and proper elimination in order to maintain well-being and energy levels." (The pH Miracle - p. 38)

"The naturally occurring self-healing ability of your own body, mind and spirit is the world's greatest healer. This means that you - not someone else, but you - can reduce your risk of disease… Your best health insurance is to be sure that all of the self-healing mechanisms within you are operating optimally… our physicians time could be used more effectively in dealing with the 30% of health problems that are not preventable. And when it is necessary to have expert medical care, we can work as partners with our physicians and therapists by purposefully stimulating our own precious gift of self-healing." (The Healer Within - pp. 7-8)

Three areas, all based on personal choice and personal action, maximize the activity of our naturally occurring self-healing capability: 1) our choice of attitudes and mental influences 2) our choice of lifestyle: nutrition, exercise, rest, relationships, finances, work, spiritual practice, play, water intake, avoidance of alcohol and cigarettes, etc. 3) our choice of personal self-care - the practice of self-healing and health enhancement methods (movement, massage, breath, meditation). The interaction of these three choice areas - attitudes, lifestyle, and self-care - is becoming and will remain the foundation of health care and healing deep into the 21st century." (The Healer Within - pp. 8-9)

"Prana is the life-force that vitalizes everything in the universe.
Naturalistic systems of medicine are based upon an understanding of the life-force and how to keep it in balance…
Natural systems of medicine use various substances as vehicles for prana, such as foods or herbs… All the different diets and herbs prescribed are done to affect the vital force in a specific manner…..
Natural medical systems also employ various actions that work on prana, such as acupuncture, bodywork….
We can learn to project the power of prana directly to heal ourselves or others… Wherever we place our attention, we are also placing some aspect of our prana or vitality….
All diseases, whether physical or mental, reflect some breakdown of pranic energy. The result is debility, depression, and disturbed emotions, all of which indicate pranic imbalances. For this reason, any disease can be treated through prana…
Pranic healing… uses the life force of the body, the prana, to assist and balance the total organism." (Prana: The Secret of Yogic Healing)

"In the West, a major focus of scientific medicine has been the identification of external agents of disease and the development of weapons against them. …In the East, especially in China, medicine has had a quite different focus. It has explored ways of increasing internal resistance to disease so that, no matter what harmful influences you are exposed to, you can remain healthy." (Spontaneous Healing, p. 4)

"We are each responsible for all of our experiences.
Every thought we think is creating our future.
The point of power is always in the present moment.
Everyone suffers from self-hatred and guilt.
The bottom line for everyone is, "I'm not good enough."
It's only a thought, and a thought can be changed.
We create every so-called illness in our body.
Resentment, criticism, and guilt are the most damaging patterns.
Releasing resentment will dissolve even cancer.
We must release the past and forgive everyone.
We must be willing to begin to learn to love ourselves.
Self-approval and self-acceptance in the now are the keys to positive changes.
When we really love ourselves, everything in our life works."
(You Can Heal Your Life, foreword)

"Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life….Man…is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it…" (Man's Search for Meaning, p. 121, 131)

"The human body, like everything else in the cosmos, is constantly being made anew every second. Although your senses report that you inhabit a solid body in time and space, this is only the most superficial layer of reality. You body is something far more miraculous - a flowing organism empowered by millions of years of intelligence. This intelligence is dedicated to overseeing the constant change that takes place inside you. Every cell is a miniature terminal connected to the cosmic computer." (Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, p. 8)

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in care of the human body, in diet, and in the causes and prevention of disease." (Thomas Edison)

"…we as human organisms, are a series of interacting multidimensional subtle-energy systems, and …if these energy systems become imbalanced there may be resulting pathological symptoms which manifest on the physical/emotional/mental/spiritual planes….These imbalances can be healed by rebalancing the subtle energy templates with the right frequency of vibrational medicine." (Vibrational Medicine - p. 18)

"A system of medicine which denies or ignores its existence (spirit) will be incomplete because it leaves out the most fundamental quality of human existence, the spiritual dimension….The tissues which compose our physical form are fed not only by oxygen, glucose, and chemical nutrients, but also by higher vibrational energies which endow the physical form with the properties of life and creative expression." (Vibrational Medicine - p. 19)

Quotes from Healing and the Mind:

"We can no longer pretend that the patient's perceptions don't matter. And we can't pretend that healing is something doctors do to a patient. Your mind is in every cell of your body. And your emotions are the bridge between the mental and the physical, or the physical and the mental. It's either way. Now there is overwhelming evidence that hormones and neurotransmitters can influence the activities of the immune system, and that products of the immune system can influence the brain." (David Felten, PhD, University of Rochester School of Medicine)

"Medicine is reaching the point of increasing expenses with diminishing returns. Part of the problem is that a very profound element is missing in medicine: the active participation of the patient. That's where optimizing the mind/body connection really becomes critical….If it's possible to teach people how to self-regulate so that, for instance, they don't go into panic so much, and their blood pressure doesn't escalate so often under stress, and they can handle their musculoskeletal pain in such a way that they don't constantly have to go to the emergency rooms, or be medicated because of it, you can imagine how much money that would save the system?" (Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD., University of Massachusetts Medical Center)

"…But I don't believe there is any such thing as a psychosomatic disease. I don't accept the notion that psychological factors alone cause disease….All disease is multidetermined, and one of the determining influences is the psychological state of the individual." (Robert Ader, PhD, University of Rochester School of Medicine)

"Healing may not be so much about getting better as about letting go of everything that isn't you - all of the expectations, all of the beliefs - and becoming who you are. Not a better you, but a 'realer' you….People can heal and live, and people can heal and die. Healing is different from curing. Healing is a process we're all involved in all the time. Healing is the leading forth of wholeness in people. I think that healing happens only in the context of our imminent awareness of something larger than ourselves, however we conceive that." (Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness at Commonweal, Bolinas, California)

"If you can't control whether or not you die, you can at least control how you live and how your body is handling the stressors that you are facing….We must help patients understand what's happening to them and help them mobilize support from family and friends. Just a little bit of caring goes a long way….It's how you live your life, and how fully you use your own resources, and do what you want to do in the world, and make and cherish relationships that are important." (David Spiegel, M.D., Stanford University School of Medicine)

"You may do the same job, but for different reasons. It's not really what we do that leads to chronic stress and to illnesses like heart disease, it's what motivates what we do - the misbelief that somehow, something external to us is going to bring us health, and peace, and intimacy, and love." (Dean Ornish, M.D., Preventive Medicine Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco)