“Every cure has functions: healthing and addressing the present cause.”
Every case of illness has two potential cures: to health the patient, or to attack the present external cause. In many cases, the best path, and the safest path is to improve healthiness. In other cases, most especially in emergencies, we must address the external cause. In some cases, the best cure is a blend of both cures. This illustration shows the two functions:
When a failure of Healthiness is the Cause
Alternative practitioners often speak of curing by addressing the terrain – often described as the unhealthiness of the afflicted. Healthiness is wider and deeper than the common concept of terrain, which is generally limited to the physical body.
A person’s illness might emerge, be caused, when healthiness in diet, body, mind, spirits, communities, or environments falls. These domains are the wider terrain. In each case, the cure is to improve the specific deficient healthiness. In some cases, an illness accumulates unhealthiness causes – and many cure many improvements in healthiness are needed.
There are two types of illness caused by unhealthinesses, status illnesses and lifestyle illnesses.
A status illness occurs when a healthiness drops enough to cause illness. When we don’t drink enough water, eat enough healthy food, get enough healthy exercise or rest, we might suffer a status illness slowly or quickly quickly. Simple dehydration, a hangover, scurvy, and injuries are status illnesses.
Lifestyle illnesses are slower. The are typically caused when our actions are only mildly unhealthy, but the unhealthiness and the damage accumulates. Sometimes, the foods we eat are only mildly unhealthy, but the unhealthy consumption becomes part of our life, eating junk food every day, smoking or drinking too much, or not getting sufficient rest of body, mind, or spirits can all lead to lifestyle illnesses. Lifestyle illnesses are chronic, persisting until the unhealthy actions and their consequences are addressed.
Note: Some cases of hangover are both a status illness and part of a lifestyle illness – in which case it requires two cures.
Chronic depression, for example, can be caused by many lifestyle factors. It can be caused by chronic dietary problems – deficiencies or excesses. It can be caused the ongoing pressure of chronic physical (bodily), mental, and spirit issues, like being physically confined to a house or a wheelchair. It can also be caused by abuse in a community – an external cause.
How do we recognize, or prove an illness is caused by unhealthiness? By the cure – the cure proves the cause. If we cure an illness by improving healthiness alone, the illness was caused by unhealthiness. If changing the diet cures a case of depression – the cause was an unhealthy diet. If changing the patient’s mind and spirit cures the depression – even though they are still confined, unhealthiness was the cause. If we partially cure it, by addressing one or more of the causes – it’s a partial cure. However, in our current medical paradigm, depression is considered to be incurable and has no ability to understand partial cures of any disease.
Most illnesses are unhealthiness illnesses. Most status illnesses are easily cured. Lifestyle illnesses are difficult, but not impossible to cure, the cure takes time and requires persistence. We know how to cure unhealthiness illnesses. But, cures for unhealthiness illnesses are not medical. No medicines improve healthiness. As a result, few, if any cures that come from improving healthiness can be recognized medically. Modern medicine declares, almost with pride, “there is no cure for … the common cold, influenza, a hangover, or alcoholism” and denies cure claims. I’ve had many colds, influenza few times – and yes, a hangover or two – all cured. There are claims of alcoholics cured, but like the common cold cured, nobody cares. The cure is not a medicine.
When the cause is External
Many causes of illness are located external to the diet, body, mind, spirits, communities, or environments, the six healthiness domains. Our diet might be disrupted by winter. Our bodies might be attacked by a bacteria, or a tiger. Our minds might be disrupted by external misinformation or propaganda. Our spirits might be weakened by events that break our faith in self or others. Our communities might be disrupted by competition or war. Our environments might be disrupted by a volcano, or a neighboring factory or other source of pollution. These causes are “not us.”
Physical or mental abuse is an external illness – even though the specific injuries are internal. These cases require an external cure to address the abuse, and an internal – healthiness cure – to address the injury consequences.
A case of depression might be caused by physical or mental abuse by self or others. It can be caused by isolation – by intentional solitary confinement. Only a cure proves a cause. If the depression is cured by removing abuse, or by being let out of solitary confinement – that was the cause.
As with healthiness illnesses, a case of externally caused illness might have several causes, requiring several cures, or several externally caused illnesses might be present at the same time. However, medically, few illnesses are recognized as having two cure causes.
Many medical treatments to address external causes are actions that decrease healthiness, even if only temporarily, often attacking specific healthinesses in the faith, or hope that the patient will recover from both the treatment and the illness. An antibiotic attacks all bacteria, good and bad, under the assumption that the good bacteria will recover but the bad bacteria will not. Curing a badly broken arm sometimes requires medical actions that temporarily make it worse.
Most externally caused illnesses are chronic. Why? If an external cause is temporary, the resulting illness is a status illness – the temporary cause is no longer present. If we have a thorn in our finger or a nail in our shoe – we remove it, and are left with an injury, a status illness that requires healing. Most externally caused illnesses that are not chronic are cured so easily, like removing a thorn, that we ignore the cure action.
On the other hand, when an external cause is present over time, the illness is chronic. The cure is to address the chronic nature of the cause. Chronic abuse cannot be cured by healing the injuries, nor by fighting the abuser, the cure is to separate the abused and the chronic abuser.
Medicines rarely address chronic causes. There is no medicine that can cure chronic eating, leading to obesity, no medicine that can cure smoker’s cough created by chronic smoking. There are no medicines that can cure chronic abuse by another person or a community. Most chronic illnesses cannot be cured by medications.
Injuries
Injuries exist in the boundary between healthiness causes and external causes. As a result, they often require both cures – external actions and internal healing.
An injury is a hole in our healthiness. It might be a hole in our body, our mind, our spirits, or our communities. The injury is both “us” and “not us.” We are not the accumulation of blood in a bruise, even though it is inside of us. We are not the hole. But the hole must be filled – with us. And if there is damaged flesh, it becomes a scab that is scraped away or falls of.
Healing is a process of discarding what is not us, and replacing it with new “us.”
Illnesses often produce in injuries. Unfortunately, in many cases of disease, no diagnosis is possible until injuries occur. Mild illnesses, mild cases of illness and injury are seldom diagnosed – their cures – natural healings, are too easy. We get a normal case of a minor cut, a bruise, the common cold, influenza, COVID, and in most cases, we don’t even visit a doctor. If we do visit a doctor – we are sent home to heal, without any medical treatment or cure.
Severe injuries require medical attention. Ongoing injuries, perhaps caused by a lifestyle illness or by an ongoing external causes are often treated without attention to cause, without intention to cure.
Chronic Illnesses
Chronic illnesses, whether they are lifestyle illnesses or have chronic external causes are cured by caring. When we care for ourselves, we cure our lifestyle illnesses. When our communities care for our injuries, they cure specific cases. When our communities help us to change our lifestyle – or address an ongoing cause that is external to us, that’s a caring cure.
How can we tell?
How do we know if the cause is internal, a healthiness, requiring personal changes, or external requiring other actions?
The cure proves the cause.
If we cured a case of illness by improving a healthiness, then unhealthiness was the cure cause.
If we cured a case of illness by addressing an external cause, that cause was the cure cause. Note: If we fail to cure the illness with medicines, we need to look at improving healthiness as an alternative.
Variations of Curing
How can we tell if the illness is a status illness, cured with a one-time cure when the status is changed, or a process illness, a lifestyle illness or caused by an ongoing process external to the client?
Healing cures injury illnesses, status illnesses.
Curing actions address causes of status illnesses that cannot be healed.
Caring actions cure by addressing ongoing causes.
In each situation, most cures come from non-medical actions. But non-medical cures are ignored by medical professionals.
When choosing to address causes of illness with healthiness, or by attacking causes, one important difference must be understood.
Healthiness cures Sum
Actions that improve healthiness sum, harmonize, and multiply to improve healthiness. When we improve the the healthiness of our diet with healthy foods and our bodies, minds, and spirits with healthy exercise and rest, we improve healthiness in many ways. We might cure our illness without a clear understanding of the specific cause. But a cure is a cure. Who’s to complain about other improvements in healthiness?
Attacking Causes can Sum to decrease Healthiness
When we attack the cause of an infection with an antibiotic, we also attack our own healthy bacteria. When we take many antibiotics at once, more healthy bacteria perhaps even our healthy cells can suffer. Most drugs are poisonous, and poisons sum in the negative. When we remove inflamed tonsils or gall bladders with surgery, we lose our tonsils and our gall bladders, as opposed to healing them. When we take a painkiller instead of addressing the cause, we intentionally decrease healthiness, although in some cases this can aid a healing cure. We know that painkillers combined, or combined with other drugs like alcohol, can kill.
The Best Cures
How can we tell which cure is best? In some cases, improving healthiness is the best cure. In other cases, addressing an external cause is necessary. We might cure the common cold with chicken soup and rest, a slow cure. But we cure severe pneumonia with antibiotics – before the infection kills the patient.
When we can cure with healthiness, without medical actions – the cure is safer. But healthy cures are often slow. In emergency cases, we need severe actions, the risk of not curing is more important than the risk of actions.
Early Cures
When we can catch or diagnose the illness earlier, we can find and make more effective healthiness cures.
Medical protocols, on the other hand, often delay diagnosis until an illness reaches a critical state, because medical treatments are dangerous.
Modern medicine makes no claim to cure injuries – injuries are cured by healing. But improving healthiness is the best cure aid for healing. When we eat healthy foods, get healthy exercise and rest, our healing proceeds faster and the results are better. When our healthiness is low, healing slows.
Both Cures
In some cases, both cures are required. A case of depression, or arthritis, or hypertension might have many causes, which sum to create an illness. In other cases there might be many causes which can independently create the illness. A case of depression might be caused by malnutrition, or by toxic poisons or drugs, or by work or family stress, or by physical or mental abuse. Or it might be caused by all of them occurring at once. In these cases, a shotgun cure technique is often most effective. A shotgun cure consists of addressing as many causes as possible at once.
The best shotgun cures are multiple actions to improve healthiness. Who’s to complain if some unhealthinesses – not related to the illness – are improved?
Medical shotgun cures are dangerous. Using a shotgun technique to attack multiple external causes at once with drugs or surgeries – can be very dangerous.
How do we learn the best cures? By practicing. By curing.
Unfortunately, modern medicine ignores most cases of cured. Most cures occur without medicines.Subscribed
to your health, tracy
Founder: Healthicine, the Arts and Sciences of Health and Healthiness
Author: A New Theory of Cure