Today medical methods of treatment are much broader including hydrotherapy, diet, psychiatry, and other branches. Science is coming to realize the importance of mental and spiritual factors in the processes involved in health and disease. On the other side, alternative medicine incorporated many other methods – natural and mystical – especially originating from Eastern pantheistic philosophies. As a result, both parties are coming together and instead of being exclusive they are becoming inclusive. Alternative methods are now called complementary because they aim to assist or complement the other, let’s say the standard treatments. At present many physicians practice both kinds of medicine, traditional and complementary. By doing so they can please the desires of many patients who believe in esoteric methods, without running the risk of losing them. It is sometimes a matter of convenience and financial interest.
Natural Healing Methods
What are “natural” methods actually? The answer should be easy but the problem lies in the different meanings given to the word “natural” and how it is used, or misused.
Some believe that “natural” is synonymous to good, correct, harmless, not using “chemicals” or drugs. By contrast, they consider that conventional medicine, because it uses “chemical” medications, must be harmful, incorrect, unnatural and bad. Both beliefs are too generalized and may be true, or partially true in some instances, but also false in others. Another and much bigger problem is the mixture of truth and error within some healing methods.
We, as Adventists have the tendency to believe blindly in any treatment that calls itself natural because Ellen G. White emphasizes the use of natural remedies. “Pure air, sunlight, abstemiousness, rest, exercise, proper diet, the use of water, trust in divine power – these are the true remedies. Every person should have a knowledge of nature’s remedial agencies and how to apply them. It is essential both to understand the principles involved in the treatment of the sick and to have a practical training that will enable one rightly to use this knowledge.” (Ministry of Healing, p. 127)
Notice two things that EGW mentions in that paragraph. First, she calls the “true” remedies by name. Not everything offered as “natural” on the healing market is recommended here. Secondly, she emphasizes that “It is essential to understand the principles involved in the treatment”. True remedies work according to understandable physiological mechanisms as explained in chapter 3, on the immune system. This is the reason why we should thoroughly study her counsels on health and also be informed about the basic functions of our body.
“It is our duty to study the laws that govern our being, and conform to them. Ignorance in these things is sin. … To become acquainted with the wonderful human organism, – the bones, muscles, stomach, liver, bowels, heart, and pores of the skin, – and to understand the dependence of one organ upon another for the healthful action of all, is a study in which most mothers take no interest.” (Healthful Living, p. 13)
Now you will be surprised to read the following list of healing methods propagated as “natural” by the Swiss Union of Natural Healing (Zieglerstrasse 30, Postfach 386, 3004 Bern 14, Switzerland):
Looking through this list you may find some acceptable methods like breathing techniques, fasting, use of herbs, hydrotherapy, Kneipp therapy, classic massage and nutrition counseling, but most of the rest are undoubtedly mystical and in disagreement with the biblical ideology.
Some methods may not be clearly mystical or pantheistic, nor have a physiologically valid explanation. They may not harm nor cure. What shall be done? We need to use sound judgement in the selection of healing methods.
Criteria for Identification
There are hundreds of alternative methods on the market, continuously appearing new ones or modifications of the existing. Each world region and culture has its own preferences. It is therefore impossible to make a complete and infallible list of non-acceptable methods. One way would be to analyze the origin of the method. However, some Christian practitioners say that they only use the method separated from its philosophy. This may not really be possible because usually the philosophy explains the supposed mechanism of action. For example, if you belief that a certain disease is caused by bacteria, you may want to combat these bacteria using antiseptics or antibiotics. If you belief that some disease is caused by the bad will of spirits, you may wish to calm the anger of the spirits with some pertinent method. If you believe that a certain disease is caused by cosmic energies not flowing correctly through the body, you may wish to correct this situation using methods that supposedly can restore the pathways of energy flow. But, if you believe that disease is caused by a wrong lifestyle, you will try to correct the wrong habits and implement a healthy lifestyle.
Here are some questions that can be of help:
- Does the effect base on known laws of physiology?
- Does the philosophy behind agree with the Biblical world view?
- Does this method lead to Jesus, or instead, to the harmony with the universe?
There are many different methods but most of them claim to manipulate some kind of unknown energy. With some experience you will recognize the pantheistic background. It could be the supposed energy flow between yin and yang, or energies flowing through imaginary meridians, or crystals that impart energy to sick organs, injections into old scars to unblock the energy flow, or any other means to foster the energy flow from the universe (macro cosmos) to the body (micro cosmos). The fantasy knows no limits!
“The apostles of nearly all forms of spiritism claim to have the power to cure the diseased. They attribute their power to electricity, magnetism, the so-called ‘sympathetic remedies’, or to latent forces within the mind of man. And there are not a few, even in this Christian age, who go to these healers, instead of trusting in the power of the living God and the skill of well-qualified Christian physicians.” (Evangelism, p. 606)
“These Satanic agents claim to cure disease. They attribute their power to electricity, magnetism, or the so-called ‘sympathetic remedies’, while in truth they are but channels for Satan’s electric currents.” (Evangelism, p. 609)
It must be mentioned that technology also entered into the mystical healing world. There are all sorts of computerized devices that claim to detect, interpret, and repair wrong currents or cellular oscillations. Some methods even claim to be able to predict the risk for developing diseases or cancer in the future. Who is not at risk with this modern lifestyle?
Some methods are visibly mystical. Others look like being scientific and use some pseudo-scientific vocabulary. Words like “vital”, “energetic”, “dynamic”, “bio”, “regulation”, and similar are usual. Since the importance of the immune system became part of common knowledge, it is frequent to read that a method or a medication aids or strengthens the immune system. Who can disprove it? We should also be cautious with the following situations:
- Therapies which claim to manipulate “unknown energy”.
- Alternative therapists, who seem to utilize psychic knowledge and/or power.
- Practitioner who has a therapy with which no one else is familiar.
- Omnipotent cures.
- Explanations that don’t make sense.
- All success-testimonials-casuistics.
- Therapies which rely heavily on altered states of consciousness.
- Therapists who claim to be on pure Christian ground but use strange “ceremonies”.
The Christian physician considers disease as the ultimate result of sin (Romans 5:12 and 6:23), not as an imbalance of cosmic energy, and directs his patients to Christ as the only true savior and healer. Then he asks for obedience to God’s laws: physical laws (healthy lifestyle), and moral laws (10 commandments). The Christian physician also believes in the existence of supernatural powers – Christ versus Satan – and prays for divine help in this invisible battle between good and evil. It is a Christ-centered approach.
“Holistic medicine”, for the secular physician, means to accept scientific and non-scientific methods of diagnosis and healing, which includes all kinds of oriental pantheistic philosophies.
“Wholistic medicine” , for the Christian physician, means that body, mind and spirit, have to be considered always as a unity. Sin and disease, salvation and healing, preaching the gospel and caring for the sick, go together. This is the Biblical approach to the problems of humanity.
It must be acknowledged that for a non-medical person it is not always easy to distinguish truth from error, especially when the methods are practiced by physicians with valid diplomas. And the number of such is increasing! Even more bewildering is the fact that some health insurance companies recognize mystical treatments as part of their repertoire. Although not all information in the Internet is reliable, there are some recommendable sites that may be of help: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine www.pcrm.org ; www.quackwatch.com and also www.wikipedia.org .