Sunday, July 13, 2003

Is Poverty Holy? In our surveys of thirty-eight holistic health practitioners, we encountered several people with an interesting (to us, at least) attitude towards money. I would call it "disdain." It seems like some of the people we talked to felt that if someone were to make a substantial amount money in a business, let's say six-figures, that that would somehow make that person a bad person. Being someone who has been making six figures of income for a number of years, I was very surprised by this. Why would someone see money as unholy and poverty as holy? Talking to a number of other people about this, we found that a significant minority of holistic healers feel this way. The spiritual aspect of holistic health (mind-body-spirit) has somehow become twisted around the idea that poverty is holy. Perhaps this relates back to the Bible. You've probably often heard that "money is the root of all evil." This is maybe the most mis-quoted Biblical phrase ever. And that's saying something. The original phrase, from I Timothy 6:10 is "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Wow, huh? The two quotes are actually almost completely opposite. On one hand, money itself is evil. On the other, the love of money is evil, but the money is not evil. Can you imagine if we had similarly misquoted other Bible passages this way? Instead of "don't covet your neighbor's wife" it would be "your neighbor's wife is evil, dude." Anyway, enough fun about that. Kabbalistic philosophy has an approach toward money that seems quite healthy. They seem money as unmanifested fulfillment. Therefore, money can represent something good or something bad, depending on how you use it. If someone accumulates great wealth and procedes to spend it all on themselves, is that evil? It seems like it probably is. However, if someone accumulates lots of money and spends it on helping other people, is that evil? I see my income as a way for me to become a channel. The money comes in one side and then I have the opportunity to help other people with it. Yes, I can make myself comfortable in the process, but I don't really have a taste for displaying my wealth with large houses or ostentatious automobiles. I assume that if someone needs to do that, they might be looking for external approval and think that the houses and cars will get that for them. Or maybe, they just like those things and feel good about using them. That's my take on "poverty is holy." 5:54:01 PM     Naturopaths at War All holistic healers work together, right? Wrong. There are as many divisions in holistic health as there are in any other sector of the economy. One glaring example of this is the naturopathic debate. There are two dominant naturopathic associations. One type is represented by the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP). The other is represented by the American Naturopathic Medical Association (ANMA). The difference in opinions between the groups is quite deep. The ANMA could be called the "permissive naturopaths." The ANMA is pursuing an agenda of "certification." This means that they believe that a certificate that someone has passed a set of courses should be good enough to declare someone a naturopath. The length of training required varies depending on the situation. The AANP takes the position of the "restrictive naturopaths." The AANP believes that naturopathic physicians should be trained at one of only five schools in North America which the association designates as worthy. The training involves years of full-time classes and residency, similar to what a Western medical doctor would go through (although still not quite as lengthy). The training is quite focused on herbs, vitamins, homeopathy and hypnosis, with less emphasis on energy work. The AANP also believes in state licensure. This means they work towards creating a licensing structure in each state that will regulate who can be licensed as a naturopathic physician. They are making slow and steady progress towards this goal. Here's my opinion. The world would be better off with either of these organizations making big gains. However, I also believe that the associations represent the polar opposites of the naturopathic spectrum. I think most naturopathic doctors fall in between the poles, but they feel they must belong to an organization, so they pick the one that is least offensive to them. In fact, unless they were educated at one of the five AANP schools, they have no choice but to join the ANMA. Reading the Website of the ANMA, I really, really think they're nuts. Almost the entire Website is dedicated to attacking the AANP. Of course, the membership is not crazy, but the people running the Website must be. Annoying blinking messages, talk of lawsuits and vicious invective run rampant throughout the site. No ANMA naturopaths I've ever met is anything like that! The AANP, on the other hand does not mention the ANMA at all on their Website. As I've stated, I think we would be better off with either group taking over a large part of North American medicine. They both have their strong and weak points. But if they spend their time, money and energy fighting each other, we've all lost a valuable opportunity. 1:23:58 PM

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