Around the world in every culture and in every era of every culture, people who feel ill have gone to other people who they hope will make them feel better. Some mechanisms of treating sickness are mentioned in the very earliest known historical records. What this would suggest is that some treatment methodologies were in existence before man began to evolve symbolic language.
In the earliest days of human society, the local wise man was expected to have the answers to everything; birth of the universe, origin of man, purpose of life, meaning of death and the remedy for disease. In these early stages healing was simply a matter of trying out what seemed to work at the time.
Hippocrates was probably the first western coach in the healing game who made careful observations of human disease and condensed his findings into coherent and practical texts. He was, as most of his contemporaries were, a subscriber to humoral theories of health and disease. This means health was the result of a successful balance between the various fluids of the body and disease was due to an imbalance of these same fluids. From this basic perception of balance and imbalance being foundational in health and disease there was also a coexistence of the psychological and the physical; a mind/body connection if you will.
Hippocrates is quoted as writing:
Everything in nature tends to re-establish that perfect harmony that constitutes normal life. Every force in the individual tends to preserve a perfect equilibrium, and, if it has been disturbed, to re-establish order and harmony.
The psychological impact of the physical setting on the patient's recovery was a major feature in the Greek philosophy of health. In the Greek model of human health, neither magic nor medicine was sufficient on its own; each needed the other. The Greek model was also encouraged by the philosophers of the era. These intellectuals were trying to systematize human biology with elegant hypothesis unsullied by actual observations or experiments. The most famous of these classical thinkers was Aristotle. His theories included perceptions that good health was possible only when there was a perfect balance of potentially Antagonistic elements or humours in the body. The four humours were blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile and their qualities were deemed to be hot, dry, wet and cold respectively.
Up until the combined efforts of both the recording of observations by the physician Hippocrates and the intellectual modelling of Aristotle, the relationship of health, illness, treatment and source included the following scenarios:
Observing Western behavior in our relationship with the above five positions it could be generally stated that:
Centuries before the mechanization of the western health management model beginning with Galen in 200 A.D., Descartes 1600 A.D. through Newton in 1687 A.D., the rest of the world was continuing to develop a different model: a completely different model in paradigm purpose, practice and modality.
PARADIGM OF THE WEST
PARADIGM OF THE REST
PURPOSE OF WESTERN PROFESSIONALS
PURPOSE OF THE REST
PRACTICE OF THE WEST
PRACTICE OF THE REST
MODALITY OF THE WEST
MODALITY OF THE REST
Well the short answer to this is: a whole lot! Science is a gradual process of finding the best fit between observation and prediction. Scientists make observations, formulate hypothesis or suppositions as a starting point for further investigation. If these further investigations demonstrate inconsistency between what is observed and what is predicted by the hypothesis, the hypothesis is revised.
This exercise continues through stages that demonstrate increasing consistency, precision and predictability. The investigations begin as a premis, progress to a hypothesis due to sufficient evidence of precision; then it is considered a theory as predictability accumulates to eventually be established as a law, e.g., gravity.
Some theories and laws accumulating over time find application to people as well as planets and particles. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth century science has built a model for health management with the following parameters.
1. Science has established the source from which change in body comfort or performance is authentic and acceptable.
2. Modalities to bring change to comfort or performance must be consistent with the established source set by science.
3. Successful outcomes are dependant on the quality of effective technologies that achieve change from this established source set by science.
4. Any modality inconsistent from the established source is quackery or at best unscientific.
5. Modification of the nervous system and/or individual cell activity must be achieved to alter comfort and performance.
Process of Establishing Source
The established source of present healing technologies is from outside the body. How did science arrive at its present position of modifying the nervous system and/or individual cells from external sources?
The process began in the 1600s with perceptions influenced by the following persons and positions.
1. The British philosopher: Francis Bacon who set the stage by affirming: "We must question what we can't see and accept only what our experiments prove."
2. The French scientist Rene Descartes introduced a foundational premis still operating today when he said: "To practice real science we disconnect and separate body from mind."
3. The mathematician Isaac Newton presented:
The scientific societies of this era resurrected a very old Greek philosophy of science that declared that all matter, including the human body, consists of tiny particles called atoms that obey physical laws.
The decision made by the science of the seventeenth and eighteenth century included the following theory: no organizing principle was present within matter or planets, particles or people. The best fit of that era between observation and prediction was that the universe runs like a well tuned clock and people are included in the universe as breathing machines.
With source being established as external because no organizing principle was present anywhere, modalities to be accepted as scientific must be applied from the external to accomplish change on the inside. Up until 1928, these scientific modalities included potions of questionable value and drawing fluids through enemas, expectorants, blood letting and poultices that were designed to draw anything they could from any orifice that would.
Developing Perceptions of the Nervous System
The stance of science firmly locked into the source of healing modalities as external was reinforced with early discoveries of the nervous system.
In 1786, Galvani discovered animal electricity that was described by mechanistic scientists as a purely physical force that could be generated by chemical means. This discovery and interpretation from the foundation of source being external was fixed in stone with the additional discovery of the reflex arc as the only significant physiology of the nervous system.
With the perception established that no organizing principle or vital energy existed in planets, particles or people, then no physiological modification can take place unless an outside force strickes the reflex arc. The reflex mechanism is dormant, inactive and still until struck by a force. Because no internal force was possible within the existing paradigm of established physics, the energy was always and only applied from the external. When this outside force does strike the reflex arc, the reaction is predictable. The body's actions are determined by what struck it from the outside. The forces used to force a reaction from the reflex are chemical, electrical or mechanical.
Digging Deeper, Much Deeper, in our Dialogue with Nature
In 1977, Ilya Prigogine was presented with a Nobel prize in physics. He demonstrated to the satisfaction of the global scientific community a deeper dialogue with nature than was previously perceived. His findings included the following.
All of nature does include an organizing principle built into its essence. The expression of this reality is demonstrated as defiance against the entropic down hill slide toward meltdown perceived by traditional physics. This defiance in some environments gives rise to forms and performances of a new complexity with increased adaptability as atoms shift to a higher order.
The order out of this organizing principle in planets particles and people emerges spontaneously when balance is achieved between antagonists. If this sounds familiar it is because Aristotle had committed himself to the same awareness. The sense of connectedness this new awareness provided included consciousness as a significant partner in the healing process. Empowerment rides on this deeper reality because of the additional capacities to mobilize healing activity through focus and facilitation.
Taking hold of the flip side of stress by using stress to increase my adaptability at all levels moves me out from under the victim stance of contemporary stress management. No longer protecting myself against premature withdrawal of limited energy, I move into a position of increased control and development of this new found potential as I anticipate and exhilarate in challenge!
Physiology opens up materializing new awareness of my
brainbody's behaviour. Like an iceberg, the reflex arc is indeed
the tip with most of my significant physiology going on below
awareness. The discovery of our body being in constant rhythm
underneath the reflex arcs maintaining balance in change as well
as being the thermostat that reprograms our body into growth from
stress forces us to rethink appropriate modalities.
Prehistory to Hippocrates:
Hippocrates 400 B.C. to Descartes - Newton
Descartes - Newton 1600 A.D. to 1928 (penicillin) 1930 (sulpha drugs) Fleming
Fleming (1928) Penicillin into 21st century
Quantum Health Model 1896 to Present
Source
Healing Mechanisms
Potential
Physiological Participant
Outcome
Responsibility
Source
Healing Mechanisms
Modalities Applied
Potential
Physiological Participant
Outcome
Prevention participated in between illness events:
Responsibility
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