karen

David Banner "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Hi Jill, I can tell you that the crisis is very real. It's the experience of facing the dragon, Minotaur, etc., every culture has this, which is essentially your own shadow, false ego, your own karmas that you ultimately have to face consciously and transform. If you'd like to read Rudolf Steiner on this, he calls it the "Guardian of the Threshold," and a detailed description is in his book How to Know Higher Worlds. And of course this can be devastating and destabilizing when the person is still susceptible to fear and illusion. That's why the natural process allows for a gradually evolving encounter with this "being." We had internalized it, but gradually you come to see it objectively as something separate from your true self, and I can tell you, that encounter can be devastating. And it has to be devastating in a sense, but not destabilizing if approached properly. The false ego has a very important function, and that should never be underestimated. We need this being just like children need parents to take responsibility for them until they're ready to become autonomous. For a child to be cast out into the world before it's developed would have the same traumatic effect as an adult conronting this shadow being head-on, before they're ready. I like the image of a silk scarf spread across a thorn bush. If you try to rip the scarf off too fast (get rid of attachments) the scarf will be torn to shreds. But this confrontation can be an organic, gradual process if done properly. -Karen

Yes - and I would still put the second situation in the broader category of "healing," as this is the body's counter-action and an "attempt" at healing. It's like the wind-up toys that hit a blockage and keep spinning their wheels - they're going in the right direction but can't go any further. That's where we need to remove the blockage so that the healing can continue, not just support the healing. It can happen, when the blockage isn't being removed, and the natural healing process is overstimulated and starts to be damaging itself. The best solution is to remove the blockage, but mostly people are suppressing the inflammation. -Karen

Glad you mentioned prolotherapy - it's on the right track, as it's actually stimulating inflammation to promote the healing. The reservations I have are that it's more invasive than other ways of accomplishing the same thing (homeopathy, for example), and if you don't have a prolotherapist locally, it's not practical to travel distances for repeated treatments. When you say "the problem arises when or if the anti-inflammatories and physical therapy don't work", I think you're assuming that successful treatment means that the symptom (inflammation) needs to go away in a certain amount of time.. I know that's what the chiropractors and many other practitioners will say, but there's more to the story.. Considering that the symptom in this case is really the healing process, not the disease process, you only want the symptom to go away when it's finished doing the healing job it's there to do. The inflammation helps dissolve endogenous toxins that the injury produces, and helps in a lot of tissue repair functions. In other words, it's important to understand the function of inflammation and not just focus on making it go away, as most practitioners do. When it's an injury, the homeopathic remedies would destroy the energetic disturbances caused by the injury, and then all you need to do is support the healing process which is doing all the restorative work after that. That's the most natural way of resolving the problem. Sometimes it's not an injury, but the body is producing inflammation to try to heal something - the warmth produced by inflammation has the capacity to reshape and mould things - think of how you heat something to make it more pliable. Disease processes often are characterized by hardening (sclerosis), and then inflammation is what you want to break up these patterns through warmth. Fever is a great example of this. And it depends on the larger context. Say you're exposed to toxins, whether generated within the body or from outside - the healthiest way to handle them is to excrete them from the getgo. Pee them out, sweat them out, etc. But say those avenues are blocked or are being suppressed in some way. Then the body tries the next phase - inflammation. If that's suppressed too, then the body deposits the toxins somewhere and that might be kidney stones or lymph gland swelling, just for example. So you see how this is going in the direction of a disease process. Now, if you treat that condition properly and help the body move in the other direction of the healing process, you will actually have to go back into the inflammation phase! That's actually the mechanism the body is using to break up the deposits. This is from the work of Dr. Reckeweg called Homotoxicology, and there's a wonderful chart showing how these phases work. It's really helpful to see what's going on in the larger context of where you were before and where you're going. Very often when we have inflammation that's not an injury, it's the body trying to move back in the healing direction from some sclerotic process. Then you want to treat the underlying diseases and help the healing process along so you're not just spinning your wheels. I don't know if cloud's case is a more acute injury, but I thought I'd go into the larger issue of inflammation since it seems to come up a lot. -Karen

Hey cloud, I know many people who get "good results" using ginger and turmeric based products, meaning they can relieve some of the inflammation, but you should know that that's just a somewhat more gentle way of using an anti-inflammatory. It's an example of herbalism co-opted by the allopathic mindset that looks at herbs as drugs to make symptoms go away. Traditional herbalism doesn't use ginger to make inflammation go away - ginger is very heating in a certain way, and there are ramifications of that - dispersing energy, which you may or may not actually want to do. Not good for yin-deficiency conditions, etc.,and should be formulated by herbalists, not supplement manufacturers . That's not to say it shouldn't be used - just like anti-inflammatory drugs, there's a place for them, but the point is knowing exactly what you're doing when you're using something that seems to be "natural" and may not be as innocuous as it seems. If you want to do herbs, I'd suggest going to a TCM or Ayurvedic herbalist and getting a formula that won't cause other imbalances for you. Or try a small dose of Zyflamend for a short period of time, if you need to take the edge off the inflammation. You might also look into a product called Phytoprofen, by Thorne, which contains some turmeric but the first ingredient is Bromelain (which is also in Wobenzym), and that actually helps the inflammatory process do what it's there to do. Best, Karen

Cloud, re. tests like MRI, the question that should be asked is, would the test results give you any more information that would change your therapeutic strategy? In other words, if you knew you had a small tear instead of just an inflammatory situation, would you do anything differently? And if not, why expose yourself to high doses of magnetic fields? It's a good question to ask practitioners who recommend such tests. Also your physical therapists. A good cranial osteopath, for one, usually can rely on feel. MRI equipment is very expensive, and the tests are recommended much more often than necessary. But if knowing the test results gives a person peace of mind, and they'd be anxious otherwise, that's also something to factor into the decision. -Karen

Hi Steve, Likewise. It's always fun when a conversation makes me expand my thinking. I'm always getting good practice creating new associations in thought, and then articulating them which is the challenging part for me! There's a lot I could say in response to your last post, and I agree with much of it, but I'd like to make one distinction. That's that the disease labels are only describing symptoms, even the labels that seem to be more useful than others. Symptoms are effects of disease, and it's like the metaphor of losing your wallet in the alley - they can't see into the supersensible realm where disease really lies, so they deal with it where the light is better (symptom level). Now, that may actually be the apropriate thing to do in some situations. When I was in septic shock in the ICU, antibiotics were appropriate. Sometimes you need to kill the messenger when the messenger itself becomes dangerous! But the difference is that you can use the antibiotic or the anti-inflammatory with *knowledge* of what you're doing, according to principles of natural law. You can use it understanding that you are only palliating or suppresing symptoms, and that suppressing symptoms drives the disturbance deeper into the system where it will expres itself again later, and might target an even more vital organ. That's how we understand the principle of what we're doing. Then we can say, well, in this particular case, in this moment, that actually is the prudent thing to do. That means being conscious, being attentive in the moment, what we call "participating the patient." So we don't apply a blanket rule and go to sleep and not be consciously engaged in each decision. What the antibiotic or anti-inflammatory can do is buy time. It can never cure per se, according to the curative law of nature. It can make symptoms go away, which is often mistakenly called cure, or healing, but those words are used loosely without understanding the natural principles that give them meaning and distinguish them from one another. In principle, an anti-something drug is used anti-pathically, against symptoms, according to the law of opposites (to increase or decrease something). Disease is an energetic disturbance that gives rise to symptoms, so by killing symptoms you don't cure disease, by definition. Diagnosis means "knowing through", knowing the inner content not the outer appearances (symptoms). Diagnosis in allopathic medicine is only descriptive, not disclosive. In the case of cardiac artery stenosis, the real cause could be (and often is) unresolved emotional trauma. To buy time, anti-pathic treatment can be used, and proximal causes targeted, nothing unkosher about that . But also, given proper treatment all along, the person would have a good chance of not developing such a symptom needing anti-pathic treatment. Yes, and yet there is a reason why we are here to experience resistances. Disease in the highest sense could be viewed as a divine cure, itself. The resistance itself is what helps us grow and evolve in concsiousness. Without resistance, we don't have movement, evolution. From what I learned about natural healing for 25 years, I came to the same conclusion, actually, until a new view opened up to me in the last 6 years. Curing disease in way I'm describing doesn't modifiy or optimize anything, but actually removes deeper impingements in the etheric body. (That's the distinction between healing and curing, a functional polarity). How we get to remove those impingements (blockages) according to natural law, so there's no question of "should we or shouldn't we" is maybe a bigger topic that I would need to take a lot more time writing about in order to clearly put across my understanding of it. For now, I'll just say that there's a generative power in nature, which we have evolved over time to have the capacity to use in ways that we couldn't in previous eras. People also didn't have the same subtle energy physiology in ancient times as we do now. We're not grasping for health or longevity out of any fear or attachment, but removing blockages as our higher self is ready to move past them, to continue to unfold our spiritual purpose. That's really the ultimate reason for doing any of this - not to feel better or save lives to accommodate lower desires. Disease is inevitable in one sense, but also what's inevitable is the divine teaching it brings as we rise to the occasion to overcome it. I speak from personal experience, as I'm consciously engaged in this process every day of my life. Sometimes it seems a bizarre choice my higher self made to sign up for this course. But it's like the greatest gift is being offered to us in every experience, and we're only prepared to let go into accepting it conditionally, so the higher self keeps creating more learning experiences to help us keep unfolding and stripping away what blocks us from ourselves.. fortunately these courses have no time limit . Best, Karen

Hi, I agree with your therapist! The main idea is that inflammation is the healing process, and you want to support natural inflammation as well as natural anti-inflammation - in other words, avoid suppressing, but you can take the edge off the inflammation to manage pain. Here are some suggestions: 1. Incease omega-3 fatty acids in the diet (fish oils, not flax). 2. X-factor butter oil can be great, although expensive (www.4radiantlife.com) 3. Eliminate gluten foods and individualize the diet so you're not causing inflammatory immune reactions unknowingly 4. Wobenzym, which is a combination of enzymes including bromelain that break down excess proteins and help the body move through the inflammation process without suppressing it. 5. Homeopathic Arnica for trauma in general, Rhus for muscle injury, Ruta for tendons/ligaments (the 3 remedies combined) 6. And/or the product "Traumeel" used topically. 7. CMO cream used topically in small amounts might be useful, although I've never used it Heat is good, more heat than cold, although alternating is fine. Examining any emotional issues that may be related to this, is good. (What do shoulders represent to you - responsibilities falling on your shoulders, that sort of thing). Take care, Karen

Ha, well, maybe we'd need to explore what meaning means . But writing a word is just another form of thinking it - it creates a little bit more physicality around it than just thinking it. You can think an abstraction like "attention deficit disorder", which doesn't lead to anything useful or meaningful, or you can think of something that's grounded in the way the universe works, like yin and yang. Exactly. It's an important observation, like declaring that the emperor of the "kinder, gentler" medicine is just as naked as the other guy. And what's considered "alternative" medicine is largely allopathic, so the distinction is basically a false dichotomy. The alternative approaches may be considerably less toxic and cause less iatrogenic disease, but the approach is largely hit-or-miss, throwing treatments at a conditon to see if symptoms will go away. That's allopathy, no matter what the treatment is. There's no unifying, rational system for understanding the real nature of disease and what causes it, and how to go about removing it systematically. When you look at the actual success rate of alternative healing methods with the kinds of complex, chronic conditions people have these days, it's very low. If symptoms are palliated, it's often temporary, and there's no understanding of why the symptoms went away or didn't go away or came back. And we don't even expect that level of understanding - we just go back to the practitioner and take it from there. There's no map of the territory over time, and no itinerary, so to speak. Largely practitioners are dealing with symptoms as they arise for no known reason but proximal causes, not root causes. There's no grounding in an understanding of the nature of disease vs. imbalance, so we get the false disease labels and drugs to target them, on the one hand; and the natural practitioners trying to balance things on the other hand, and neither of them are really working on the causative level. But with a system that has such a map and itinerary, then various treatments can be brought in - whether from the realm of alternative medicine or allopathic medicine - according to how they fit in and further the treatment strategy, in a rational way. We're not in Kansas anymore, no matter how many false dichotomies are created to make it appear like Kansas offers essentially different choices. . I've known a few alternative practitioners, one an MD who studied and practiced cutting edge modalities, who was honest enough with himself to face the reality of the poor results he was getting, and folded up his practice. He soul searched, started from scratch and reinvented his whole approach eventually, but that's a rare thiing for practitioners to do who've already invested so much in their training. So in my view, I don't throw out the baby with the bathwater and discount anything entirely, but use a particular tool for a particular purpose based on knowledge of principles. Otherwise, the practitioner only has one particular toolkit and uses that one in every situation. And just a note about healers making tumors disappear - when the tumor is obstructing a vital function, like cutting off breathing, then of course that's a good thing. But otherwise, a tumor isn't the disease, but the healing process by which the body is trying to contain the disease process. Removing a tumor doesn't necessarily help the course of the disease process at all. That's an example of how the outer appearances of things can be misleading. As for "legitimate illnesses," we first have to understand what an illness is, and to differentiate symptoms, conditions, imbalances, and true diseases. Disease is an energetic phenomenon that is quite different from the arbitrary disease labels of the allopaths, but still there are entities that could rightly be called disease. The reason the classification is so crucial is because different laws of nature apply - if you invoke the law of opposites for a disease, you don't get a cure, and if you invoke the law of similars for an imbalance, you don't get balance. Dr, Hahnemann's system gives us the different jurisdictions of disease, but the basic polarity is natural diseases vs. spiritual diseases. (A functional polarity like yin/yang, being a distinction, not a separation). Spiritual diseases can also have physical effects, and a natural disease like measles can also have spiritual effects. What's labelled allopathically as one disease entity could really be the effect of a multitude of causes - diseases and imbalances that can all be mapped out. Of course the allopathic disease labels are rarely real - even arthritis, migraine, heart disease, each one can have many different causes. One person's arthritis could be a water deficiency; another's could be an emotional disease, but usually there are multiple causes in each case. So the term "arthritis" is only an abstraction based on the appearance of certain symptoms. That's like classifying everyone who has anxiety, dry skin and backache as having a new "disease" called ADB. There are probably millions of people with that disease, and we need a drug for that, don't we? -Karen

Hi Steve, It's an important question, because it goes to the heart of phenomenology - what is the nature of a thing. I think the key to the issue of naming something is that there are two basic aspects to a thing, as everything has polarity - the outer appearance (form) vs. the phenomenon of the thing (inner, living content). You're right - the outer form of something can be an abstraction that the intellect constructs - like the false disease labels that allopathic medicine gives to conditions. There really isn't a phenomenon that could be rightly called "attention deficit disorder." That name, as well as most of the other diagnostic labels, is an abstraction that isn't grounded in an essential phenomenon of being - it's just a construct. There may be real phenomena there, but by constructing some entity called ADD which has some arbitrary criteria, we're not connecting with the underlying phenomena. The false label game is like worshipping false idols, which is what we often do in our materialistic thinking. (That's why Thich Nhat Han says, "Call me by my true name.") And that's why material medicine has no real cures, because what they're trying to cure are abstract labels, not real phenomena! There are disease entities that can be named, but they are non-material (or supersensible) in essence, and require remedies that act on the supersensible level. So when I use such a remedy to target a supersensible disease entity, the name of the disease and the remedy both have real meaning. The word "food" can't provide material food, of course, and to a certain extent we need material substance; we live in materiality and can't live purely on intention.. yet! And the word "flower" doesn't have an aroma, because it's a phenomenon beyond the senses, and is something we can know supersensibly. But that requires developing our supersensible "organs" of cognition, which is a challenge for us. Goethe, for one, was an amazing scientist (not just a poet) who brought out the understanding of this inner content, or archetypal essence of things. It's like how the seed of a tree carries the essence of the tree, and supersensibly we know they are the same thing, although our material mind wants to divide things up into the different outer forms of a thing and call them different things. For some practical purposes they can be looked at that way, of course, as long as we're not attached to that one level of perception. To me, the meaning of the word magic is like the word mystery - we call something mysterious if we don't understand the phenomenon, or can't ground it in something real. If you're using the name of a thing, or the physical form of a thing for certain effects without knowledge of what you're doing except for the outer effects you get, I'd call that magic. Sounds like allopathic medicine . But if you use a remedy, whether in physical form or thought form, within its rightful jurisdiction, with knowledge of the principle of nature that you're invoking, I wouldn't call that magic. Either you're using a physical carrier to convey information, or you're simply doing without the physical carrier and conveying the information in a different way. If you strip away all the physical matter of a substance, the essential action of a thing is really in the nature of a signal - information. So we're just changing the vehicle but sending the same message -Karen

Hi Matt, All we can do is be available to offer suggestions.. and when we feel the urge to push them toward what WE think is best, we get to look ar our own attachments! That can be a great gift to us. There can be higher spiritual purposes weaving through this. -Karen

Hi Matt, For serious illness, I'd go straight to Dr. Hahnemann's complete medical system called Heilkunst, www.homeopathy.com. See my previous post about it here. Especially when there's no time to experiment with different methods in a hit-or-miss fashion, Heilkunst provides the broader understanding of where each of the various therapies fits, for a particular person, and which would be more effective at a particular time. It also treats with remedies that remove disease on the energetic level, which is something different from balancing energies. TCM treatment I'm sure would be greatly supportive and a good part of the whole program. Best wishes for your friend. -Karen

Yes, and ALL of the drugs in the same class have virtually the same "side effect" profile - the only real differences have to do with marketing! And what are called "side effects" are just the primary effects that we don't like - all the effects are really primary effects, just that each person has a different susceptibility. Very often what's thought of as an ear infection isn't a true infectious process, even when bacteria happen to be present (correlation, not causation). It's usually just an inflammatory healing reaction where the body is trying to get rid of toxins. Notice how kids often get them after getting vaccinated. The body is trying to throw off the toxic material, and that should be supported not suppressed. -Karen

There's an Ayurvedic formula that helps support the kidney after taking antibiotics - Gokshuradi guggulu. Generally you take it for 10 days after the antibiotic. Best to consult with an Ayurvedic herbalist for that. It's not surprising that other symptoms show up after taking antibiotics. The antibiotic is trying to suppress the symptoms, which are the body's attempt to heal, so the inflammation will keep trying to express itself in other ways. You might want to consult with a type of practitioner who could give you some insight as to the real cause of the ear infection and treat the cause, not suppress the symptoms which are just the effects. -Karen

Material science is always going to reject the concept of non-material action at a distance...but just because something is non-material doesn't mean it's not real, and doesn't mean that it can't be scientific in a real sense. Through the non-material medium of ether, you can transmit a force field beyond space and time, and connect with anyone, anytime, instantaneously. Quantum physics talks about this, in terms of morphogenic fields (the work of Rupert Sheldrake). A force field can act at a distance without much energy, like a forceful character who doesn't do or say much (a Marlon Brando type, for example!). Other people might have lots of energy but don't really get much done in terms of influencing others. Another way to look at it is that the universe is a polarity, with two poles represented by the symbol of the circle and the point, or the periphery and the center. At the periphery, you can connect with everything else on the periphery, because it's an infinite series of planes. As for the practical use of energy at a distance (or force fields), the medical system I use makes use of it all the time - instead of using a remedy in physical form, I often write the name of the remedy on a piece of paper, since the name of a thing carries its force field. Clinically, these "paper remedies" have been shown to work as well as the physical remedies - given that you have the right remedy, of course! Although many people aren't comfortable with that yet, so they use the physical remedies. There's also bioresonance technology that allows a practitioner to do detailed diagnostic workups with people at a distance. When used knowledgeably, that can be a great tool. IMO distance healing the way it's usually done isn't as effective as the more precise and systematic workup. There can be dramatic successes, just like with anything, but unless we have a science, we don't know how to reproduce the success. And a healer might make symptoms go away, but the key is knowing whether that was an actual cure or just a temporary symptom relief or even a suppression that could lead to a worse condition later. That requires more than just the ability to apply a powerful force field, but precise knowledge of the principles of nature involved in total remediation, and how to apply them correctly in each case. With Dr. Hahnemann's medical system (which includes homeopathy), once the diagnosis is made the treatment is automatically known, so correct diagnosis itself (and we're not talking about allopathic disease labels) is the focal point of treatment, and treatment can be transmitted in a variety of ways. We're not limited to physical means. -Karen

It's an interesting question - magnetic fields are "energy after matter,"' according to Wilhelm Reich, which differs from orgone energy which is "energy before matter." Here's a quote: "We must make a clear distinction between cosmic energy before matter and after matter. The former is represented by the observable forms of primordial, massfree orgone energy; the latter is represented by the well-known different 'particles' of [electromagnetic radiation], such as alpha, beta and gamma rays, neutrons, mesons and so forth... The sharp distinction between cosmic energy before and after matter is of paramount importance if confusion in thinking and applied method of research is to be avoided." - Wilhelm Reich, The Oranur Experiment In other words, orgone energy isn't affected by radiation, electricity, magnetism, etc. My sense is that exposing water to high orgone (POR or positive orgone) has more effect on the etheric form of the water, and that magnetizing it may help precipitate out unwanted solids, adjust the pH, etc., which is all good but has closer to a material effect. But I'd have to look into it further, and will let you know if I come up with anything more. The usual explanations of magnetic therapy don't take this far enough, IMO. -Karen

Just because salt comes from the Himalayas doesn't necessarily mean that it has the important crystalline structure. There isn't much difference biochemically but there's a huge differenc biophysically (functionally). See my article on water and salt for the distinctions between different types of salt.

Years ago, I received some Ayurvedic treatment from him, and took his Ayurveda course. His path isn't my cup of tea now, but he's quite genuine.

Bovril is MSG city-- a nice little neurotoxin with your tea and toast. Not sure that'll be enough to control the human race, but it's a start.

Yoda, real beef bone broth (made from grass-fed beef) is a great nourishment, but bouillon has very little in common with the real thing. It's loaded with MSG and nasty table salt. Try some homemade beef broth with some crystal salt and see how that grabs ya . Broth is Beautiful

There's a good chart of teeth and their related meridians, here. And a terrific reference not just for teeth but any symptom, is the book Messages from the Body by Narajan Singh, although it's expensive and only available from the publisher. It's a large encyclopedic work giving information about the deeper emotional/spiritual meaning of each kind of symptom or disturbance in a particular part of the body. Each "message" can't be just accepted in an unconscious way, but you have to sort of digest it and see where that process takes you. Karen

Hi Ian, It may seem odd, but it's really pretty common to have various sensations felt in the teeth that don't originate there. The teeth are often reflecting something going on elsewhere. The canines relate to the liver/gallbladder, and to anger issues. Many sensations can be indicative of something the body is trying to work out--a healing process--rather than something "wrong" per se. Of course you have to look at the larger picture, but maybe that general idea helps? -Karen

Ha! I think next we'll be seeing Kitty Ji with his DVD coming out for only $19 freakin' 99 Puppet Ji seems the modern version of Swami Beyondananda, which used to crack me up.. I wonder if any of that is still available...

Hi freeform, As usual, you want to get to the cause of the symptom and not just get the outer symptom to go away. It's hard to know without looking at a whole case what's causing any particular symptom, since the same symptom can be caused by different things in different people - the homeopathic materia medica has many different remedies for dark circles under the eyes, meaning there are that many different energetic disturbances that could cause it. Ledum might help for bloodshot eyes, as it helps the body reabsorb blood, but really only for acute cases. At the spiritual/emotional level, you could look at the symptom as a manifestation of something you don't want to "see." With bloodshot eyes, it's often a situation of emotional overload, something that needs to be processed, often grief. I love Meir Schneider's programs for Bates-type eye exercises - he has a CD that I've used, that has a bunch of exercises specifically for computer users in addition to the general exercises. Also his first book is an inspiration. The connection with the liver is right-on. The liver is the main metabolic organ for functioning at the lower pole of our being, with the upper pole being the nerve-sense system including the eyes. When there is a weakness of the upper forces, the lower forces can "invade" where they don't belong, and that's when you see inflammatory symptoms in the upper body - eye symptoms, migraines, etc. This is reflected in allergies, where you have the upper forces not being able to properly keep the lower forces in balance. The upper forces are responsible for breaking down foods and stripping away their foreign forces, so when that function is weak, you have foods being incompletely processed, and the body reacts with inflammation to try to dispel the foreign forces. Dark circles under the eyes have been called "allergic shiners." So at the level of nutrition, you could look at food allergies. Instead of going through tedious and expensive food allergy testing, it's easier to look at where you fit in to certain diet typologies (body/glandular type and blood type in particular) to identify which foods are best for you and which aren't. Sean is in the process of overhauling my website to be much spiffier and easier to find things (yay!), but the basic info on the customized eating guidelines designed with the Diet Therapy software is there, if anyone's interested. Take care, Karen