I have been thinking of how important it is for natural (traditional) medicine professionals to understand allopathic (conventional) medicine. Which of course, brings up the subject of complementary medicine. Complementary medicine should utilise the best of both medicines together, for the good of the patient and no other reason. It should not be for the image enhancement of the drug or vitamin company, the modality, or prestige of the practitioner.

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both medicines can breed respect and a tolerance, which cannot be achieved through eyes which only see there is one way. For how can you be convincing that one is better if you don’t know anything about the other?

The argument is much like spirituality. Someone of a particular spiritual persuasion may seek to understand another belief system because their friend says it’s beneficial. The knowledge gained by exploration of another belief helps you connect with a person of that belief. For those with aspirations of ‘converting’ people to their own spirituality, the skill of understanding who you’re ‘preaching’ to really matters. I believe there would be benefit in spirituality taking the same approach of natural medicine; healing wholistically and treating the individual, not the symptoms.

It’s great when you can lift yourself out of a pile of study mud and actually do a lesson which makes sense! The 4 subjects I’m currently doing are all to varying degrees, hard. But the spooky thing is, they are all interrelating. No, this isn’t the college curriculum; this is my chosen schedule as I’m mainly doing it by distance ed.
The lesson I’ve just completed is on the Integumentary System (skin, hair, nails etc), which I find highly practical compared to learning about the Periodic Table. But alas, one has to learn the fundamentals; what’s underneath everything before understanding how to really see the big picture.