Healing cures have two stages, the transformation and the recovery.
In the theory of cure, healing cures are defined as cures that result of the natural forces of life, which act to remove damage around a wound, and repair it. The concept of healing covers injuries to body, mind, spirits, and communities – each of which might suffer injuries.
However, many traditional – and some conventional medical practices use the word healing differently.
How might we reconcile these definitional differences?
The theory of cure defines a cure as an action that addresses the present cause of an illness. It recognizes and and distinguishes between three different types of cure actions: healing, caring, and curing. In the theory of cure:
Healing: is a transformational process occurs naturally, without conscious intention. Most healing is curative. Sometimes healing can be damaging or dangerous.
Caring: consists of community actions, by the afflicted individual, family and friends, and medical or non-medical caregivers, that address the signs, symptoms, negative consequences, and causes of illness. Most caring activities are not cures. When a caring act addresses a present cause of an illness, it is also a curing act.
Curing: consist of actions that intentionally address the present cause of an illness, producing a cured status. Curative actions cure, by definition – or they are not curative actions. Most curing actions are not medical because most cures are not medical. We have cured ourselves and others in our communities since life began – long before doctors and medical systems were invented.
Where do the healing arts like fasting, massage, Tai Chi, and others fit into this framework? Most of the healing arts have two cure elements. First, there is a transformation, second, a healing. The primary function of the art is transformation of the cause. Natural healing is expected to follow. The healing arts are not limited to curing the body. The healing arts operate and produce cures by addressing causes in all six domains: diet, body, mind, spirits, and communities.
- dietary supplements, as well as tools and techniques to clear out toxic substances range from various diets from vegan to carnivore and many others, dietary supplements, to fasting in many forms, detoxification techniques, including chelation, activated charcoal cleanse, blood irradiation or cleansing therapies – which include medical techniques like dialysis.
- actions to transform the body, which might accomplished by the individual, or be taught or coordinated through community: exercise, rest, stretching, laughter therapy, prayer, dance therapy, Pilades, earthing, holistic living, Alexander Technique, and martial arts like Tai Chi, Yoga, Qigong. These are rarely part of a medical process except in rehabilitation.
- soft tissue and structural manipulations generally enacted by community members, often not recognized as medical professionals, massage by the individual or community members: massage therapy, chiropractic, osteopathic, Rieki, acupressure and acupuncture, kinesiology, therapeutic touch, Feldenkrais, hydrotherapy, bates eye therapy, and of course medical surgery and rehabilitation techniques.
- techniques to develop or change mental or spirit processes including mind body linkages such as prayer, faith healing, autosuggestion, hypnosis and self-hypnosis, meditation, counselling, Feldenkrais as well as medical techniques like psychology and psychiatry.
- community processes like groupwork – in many flavours, animal assisted therapy, attachment therapy, community prayer, dance therapy as well as psychological, psychiatric and sociologic therapy.
Of course there is considerable overlap between types of actions. In addition, most can be accomplished by the individual, by various caring others or communities and recognized medical communities in different situations or cases. There is also overlap between the changes made to mind, body, spirit, and communities in an effort to cure. Any change to the body might change the mind, spirit, and community processes, as does any change to mind, spirits, and communities.
Let’s look at a few of these techniques in framework of the theory of cure.
Bodily Surgery
Medical surgery is generally recognized as a curative process. Non-medical surgery only rarely. The surgeon causes a change, a transformation with some damage – and healing completes the cure, repairs the damage.
Surgery a damaging transformation. It’s not surgery when we cut our toenails. But, an ingrown toenail might be serious enough that it requires a damaging surgery. Healing completes the cure. Of course the surgeon in minor cases might be the patient, a friend or family member, or in serious cases a doctor or nurse. We rarely call surgery a “healing art” but a medical surgeon is in many ways an artist – every body is different, and every surgery requires a technical and an artistic process.
Many of the so-called alternative medical systems operate in similar surgical fashion.
Massage is a surgery of bodily tissues, muscles, tendons, fascia, and even specific organs. It might be done by a physical therapist, as part of a rehabilitation cure process, but there are many other massage practices, ranging from simply rubbing our injured muscle to sophisticated techniques like Thai massage, Therapeutic touch, chiropractic, osteopathic, acupressure and acupuncture, and kinesiology. Each of these techniques causes some bodily change, possibly even transformation or damage, which might also require healing processes to compete the cure. The transformation is a cure. Healing is a secondary curative transformation.
Natural and intentional stretching, and Bayes eye therapy, can cause transformations which sometimes require a healing process to complete the cure.
Nutrition and Anti-nutrition (detoxification)
Dietary changes can function in a similar fashion. When we fast, we aim to remove “negative flesh” and any damage that occurs will be repaired by healing during and after the fast is ended. Taking supplemental nutrition, when not available in the diet, is a process cure that must be maintained to maintain the cured status. On the other hand, taking large amounts of a substance or nutrient is often designed to cause a transformation which, after recovery and healing, completes a cure.
Although doctors sometimes prescribe fasting for specific medical purposes, like before a blood test, they have difficulty considering fasting to be a cure. But fasting often cures once healing completes the process. Doctors might prescribe folate supplements to pregnant mothers, again – they do not view these as cures. In theory of cure, if a deficiency exists and is successfully addressed – it’s a cure.
Detoxification techniques, including chelation, activated charcoal cleanse, blood irradiation cause transformation in the body, with the expectation that healing will recover the person’s health to a better status. Our medical systems often dismiss these techniques – even in cases where they cure.
Medically, cleansing therapies like dialysis are not viewed as “cures” because the process must be continued regularly. This is a failure to understand cure. Some cures are physical transformations – some are process transformations, required every day to maintain a healthy status, just as we must consume Vitamin C regularly after a scurvy cure to maintain the cured status.
Mind
Many “healing systems’” function by changing the mind or the spirits, sometimes even causing stress or damage – and healing completes the cure. Sometimes, the change to our mind is traumatic – and significant time is required for healing. In other cases, the mental change is minor, even a relief, and the healing is barely noticeable.
Psychological therapies aim to change the mind and the result is often a change to the body as well.
Techniques like prayer, faith healing, autosuggestion, hypnosis and self-hypnosis, meditation, counselling, Feldenkrais, and others function by making changes to minds and spirits, transforming them – facilitating healing of body, mind, and spirits.
Conclusion
Often, when we are ill, healing is blocked. A transformation of diet, body, mind, spirits, or communities is necessary to create a release and allow healing to work. We call many of these practices “healing arts.” In the theory of cure, they are caring arts. We might care for ourselves by changing our diet or our mind. And a curative healing follows. We might lift our spirits with rest, meditation, or yoga, or many other practices, giving body, mind, and spirit freedom to heal. When we care for ourselves, healing can enter and cure. Similar healing can occur when a caring person – a medical practitioner or not, cares for us.
Modern medical practitioners often dismiss these cures as “placebo effects.” However, when we look closely at placebo effects, they disappear. There is no scientific or medical test that can distinguish a real effect from a placebo effect – because placebo effects are real. The only thing that defines a specific placebo effect is the opinion of the doctor, not any scientific fact.
In the theory of cure, an illness consists of two elements, the blockage and the damage it causes and it requires two curative processes. When we release the blockage with a transformation, healing is necessary to complete the cure.
Sometimes, the cure is quick and sure. Other times, like physical rehabilitation from a serious injury, many stages of transformation and healing are necessary. We might easily give up, or decide that the effort, and the negative consequences are not worth the benefit. This too is a natural process, a natural decision.
to your health, tracy
Author: A New Theory of Cure