In Defense of Traditional Medicine

One of the greatest teachings I was provided in viewing societal structures and life in general, is that, if you want to find the root of a client's problem, don't necessarily listen to what the client says, but more importantly, follow the trail of money. Take that teaching and move it into every aspect of society. You'll find corruption, conflicts of interest, and a plethora of issues in almost every aspect of society. To get to the heart of the problem, follow the trail or money. 

In prior presidential debates, candidates would be asked "is healthcare a right, or a privilege". Essentially, candidates were being asked, should everyone have healthcare, or only those that can afford it. Of course, the answers were divided between party lines, where either it's shared, or there was the fear of limited resources being presented indicating that only if you can afford it should you be able to receive it. In an economy where wealth perpetuates wealth, where those who have the financial resources are able to obtain the lower interest rates so they would never have to use their own money for risky ventures, as well as the continual divide between the social classes with the middle class being squeezed out since the George W. Bush administration, healthcare has become a financial issue more than ever. In every political debate discussing healthcare, the finances are what is discussed, not necessarily the quality. 

Politicians are not medical doctors nor scientists. Though most are attorneys who through their profession, must learn about different non-legal areas in order to provide proper representation, such representation is done through a narrow lens where you look for individuals in the represented industry who will say what you want them to say. When politicians address healthcare, they address the costs and who should be able to obtain healthcare. None, at least within my purview, have addressed the issue of healthcare in a capitalist environment. Basically, is our medical industry looking for cures or are they looking for repeat customers? 

Let's face it, we've all needed finances in order to survive in this man-made collective arrangement we call society. Take it one step-further, most of us have a little bit of Donald Trump fantasy in us, where we would like to have the finances of a business tycoon and walk around like some wall-street fat cat. Especially when inner work hasn't been done, when all can be found and sourced within, where we choose to look to external circumstances to dictate our happiness, we get caught up in this rat-race trap to find our happiness. Such is found through probably every CEO or Board Member of a medical non-profit that I've witnessed, whose driving around in a luxurious tax deducted company car, and living a lifestyle that many have only dreamed of, again with many luxuries such as fancy restaurants being written off. The taste of power and money is all too enticing, and I'm far from saying that such is bad. It's when others are manipulated and trodden upon to attain such that I pose some issues. 

The biggest threat to Western Medicine is Traditional Medicine, or what is deemed "alternative" in the Western world. Basically, if you provide someone with a cure, the medical industry no longer has a client, or a dependent who needs to keep coming back for assistance. Second, if the cure is natural product, as often provided under traditional medicine, the medical industry cannot put a patent on the product. As evidenced by the pharmaceutical industry, where a majority of their profits do not go into research, but marketing, natural products are an extensive threat to a major profitable industry. Hence, in order to survive, these guys need political representation, lobbying, with the intent to stop traditional medicine from flourishing.

Growing up in the Western world, we go to the doctor for health concerns, and we place a significant amount of trust within our educated for assistance. This is something coined as the "expert phenomena" where individuals will subdue their logic and place full trust in someone who has an "education" or a "certificate". However, we now live in the age of information, where a wealth of information is just a few clicks away, where the average individual can now research their own issues and have a better discussion with their health practitioner. Nonetheless, provided the amount of traditional medicine information available, the Western Medical world has had some trouble addressing such issues, especially when the trail of money begins to flow elsewhere. 

Growing up in an Eastern household, a few relatives took the alternative medicine route, studying Oriental Medicine and Indian Ayurvedic Medicine, practices predating much of even basic cultural development in the Western wold. Hence, I've seen and obtained the benefit of acupuncture/cupping and proper nutrition. In order to properly discuss these topics within the Western world, it was pivotal to understand the Medical communities views on these topics. Hence, I've done the research a few years back and the National Institute of Health had even stated that there was something more to acupuncture beyond the placebo affect, where clients had more benefit from actual practitioners as opposed to individuals that were randomly sticking needles on one's body. However, when the National Institute of Health released that information, a plethora of Medical school furiously opposed the research arguing that such should not even be studied as it's an "old wives tale". My legal mind expected a better, more scientific argument from the Medical community, one that would refute the non-placebo affect of acupuncture. So why would an educated community make such a "poison the well", and extremely arrogant, type of argument I asked myself? Well, just follow the trail of money. This type of argument reminds me of when attorneys go into Court bragging about what big law school they attended, what big firm they are employed at, or what ground breaking cases they've worked on, as opposed to actually arguing the merits of the presented moving documents. 

With the recent Olympics in Brazil, the global news and social media were astonished at the many athletes, including the prominent Michael Phelps, using "cupping", a traditional Asian practice akin to a deep tissue massage. I've used cupping myself numerous times, all which throughout the days thereafter have led to release of significant muscular tension, in addition to the numerous marks. Hence, it makes sense to me for athletes to receive cupping. A quicker fitness recovery leads to better performance. Though most fitness and nutritional blogs came out in support of cupping, again, the scientific community placed the practice into the category of a placebo while admitting that much research (in the Western world) needed to be done to discuss the benefits. Again, such arguments resound with how the Western Medical community responded with acupuncture. If much more Western research is to be desired in the very ancient practice of "cupping", why are they so quick to group "cupping" into a placebo affect, as in, inferior to Western Medicine? Especially in a world where it is much healthier to receive "cupping" as opposed to taking a pill, even if it is over-the-counter pain medicines, you'd think the Medical Community would either be more receptive, or actually attempt to study the merits thereof. 

In a nation that is extremely hocked-up on pharmaceuticals, you would think the Medical industry would look for better options, as opposed to fighting them. The Eastern world takes a deeper holistic approach, using many modalities frowned upon by the mainstream Western world. From using astrology to find an individuals ailments, to discovering someone's body type and providing a nutritional/fitness approach based on the assessed information, to analyzing someone's lifetyle, the Eastern world has attempted to assess someone inside out, in a preventative manner. The Western world is slowly grasping prevention, where the Western world has focused on after the fact of disease or injury, and only on the disease as opposed to the cause of the disease. 

To take this one step further into the realm of odd for the Western practitioner, the Western world will never be able to fully understand the Eastern modalities without attempting to understand the source of all, Consciousness. Psychology has a long way to go in the Western world, where individuals like Carl Jung extrapolated much from Eastern Philosophy and Western Esoteric. In addition, the next generation of rebellious psychologists were censored, such as Wilhelm Reich whose later students developed bioenergetics. In fact, Wilhelm Reich is the case study of the most censored individual in U.S. history, not Nikola Tesla. Reich discovered the ability to manipulate prana, chi, etc., though he named it orgone based off of orgasmic energy. Such healing modes are directly involved with an individuals state of consciousness, of mental psychological health, where the dissonance in one's life manifests as dis-ease. Such is further found by individuals who have been involved in hypnotherapy, traditional ayhuasca ceremonies, or other esoteric psychic healing modalities, where the disease in one's life is directly related to that individuals thought processes. 

Though, because of the "expert phenomena", many will continue to refuse their own reasoning when it comes to "established" Western practices, and much Eastern practices will require an understanding of Eastern philosophy to understand what is really going on inside oneself. The traditional modern Chemist (not ancient alchemist like Isaac Newton) or Biologist, will have many issues in resolving Eastern practices as they will always look for objective evidence. Nonetheless, the Eastern Philosopher, and Physicist (particularly those studying subatomic particles/quantum mechanics) who understands how consciousness affects objective reality (double-slit theory), should understand the power of Eastern Traditional Medicine. But before the Western world can even grapple with Eastern modalities, psychology, and philosophy, we still have the issue of the trail of money within the Medical industry. If it's not profitable, in fact counter-profitable, how is this industry going to handle these issues?