“ The cure of the part should not be attempted without treatment of the whole.  No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul and therefore, if the head and the body are to be healthy you must begin by curing the mind……for this is the greatest error of our day in the treatment of the human body, that physicians first separate the soul from the body.”

Plato   500 BC


What is “Health”?

To examine the nature of Health we must first think about what we are.  What is a human being?  What is the nature of Man?  Is there a soul?  What is consciousness?  What is the body?  And the answer is – we do not know the answer.  Or rather we each have our own answer.   We can speculate, argue and debate and arrive at many different conclusions – the mind and body are separate, the mind creates the body, the body is a lump of tissue and cells that is coordinated by the brain, the body is a physical space that the soul inhabits while on this earthly plane (Buddhist teaching), and so on.  Western medicine generally applies the principle that the body is solid and a mass of cells and tissues that we can change with drugs and surgery.  And this is true.  Other cultures regard the body as an electromagnetic field – a matrix of energy which forms a human being.  And this is true also.  

So what IS the body?  Lets do some simple science.  

A body is made up of tissues and organs.  Look a bit closer and we see that the organs are made up of cells.  Closer still and we see that cells are made up of atoms. And what are atoms made of?  Protons and electrons whizzing around – true.  But – 99.999% of an atom is space.  And if this is true – and it is – then we too are made up of space.  We appear solid because of the vibrational frequency of the electrons and protons ie how they shake rattle and roll.  The faster they vibrate the less solid we appear.  Bone and muscle are slower vibration than blood, which in turn vibrates more slowly than our (invisible) electro magnetic field.  The same principle applies in the kitchen.  We take a lump of ice –H2O with slow vibration – heat it (thus increasing the molecular movement) and it becomes water.  Heat it some more, the molecules become more agitated and the water becomes (invisible) steam. The electro magnetic field may be invisible but has been well demonstrated with the use of Kirlian photography.   In Chinese medicine the electro magnetic pathways may be referred to as the (acupuncture) meridian system, and they have been mapped electrically and thermographically.  Kirlian photography also shows how illness changes our energy field.  In many cases our energy field changes before any physical manifestation of illness.  So if we maintain a coherent and balanced energy field we are more likely to stay healthy and strong.  On the other hand if we become unwell then restoring a strong and balanced energy field will promote healing.  And this is where complementary therapies can help.