INGRID NAIMAN
I am not a physician. I am what might be called a medical philosopher and counselor. My interest in holistic medicine began less as a rejection of allopathic medicine than a deep yearning for harmlessness, wholesomeness, and harmony. As time went on, I did become concerned that material medicine tends to ignore the issues faced by the person who is sick and suffering—and I did, in fact, reach the point in my own personal life that I was no longer interested in the technical prowess that operates at the expense of the larger picture. I have often asked myself what I would do if I were the patient rather than the person patients consult when they are ill. My first answer has usually been, "I would sit under a tree."Over the years, there have been those who understood me perfectly and those who did not. Many patients said, "You'd do nothing!" My response is that sitting under a tree is not doing nothing. It is an admission that when we are lost, there is no point in going forward.
When faced with a critical illness, there is a red flag on the game of life. We know that if we continue as if all were fine, the patterns that led to our crisis will go unchecked. The outcome, in such instances, would probably be death. So, I would sit under a tree until I came to know what my life is all about. A few patients have immediately understood that this is the study undertaken while sitting.
Trees are wonderful companions. They tend to encourage us to look up into the Sky and down into the Earth, to appreciate the wind and the rain and to forge a feeling of being connected, of being one with life. While we have much to learn from trees, life is actually about living our Creator's Plan, and since this is something we probably did not learn in school, we often have to set aside time for the lesson later in life—when the stakes are high.
My Education
I have some academic credentials, but to me they are not very meaningful. I majored in Asian Studies at the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii. At that time, I was, as now, interested in philosophy and in cultures different from my own; but the most important experience of my entire undergraduate days was a brief acquaintance with the famous Suzuki-sensei who taught me to recognize my own mind, where it was focused, and how that affected my concentration and awareness.
I went on to graduate school at Yale University, left with a master's degree before my right brain was permanently damaged by studies that to me seemed deeply separated from reality. The obsession with this schism became, over the decades since Yale, a major source of disquiet for me as I could see how the heart and soul are often as not left out of the major activities of our lives. How we make our livings, how we prioritize our spare time, and even how we relate to the important others in our lives are often viewed as separate from what feels good and even relevant.
Knowledge versus Knowing
In my book, I refer to this as the tyranny of "mind over matter," and I suspect it operates against genuine healing. We are led to believe that we ought to appreciate treatments that are painful, that cause us to vomit, and that make our hair fall out because they are destroying a life threatening growth. Numbed into submission by fear and arguments—and coerced into treatments that torture the body more than the illness itself—we ignore our deeper and truer selves. The loss of personal integrity that attends such denial of one half of our being is important and, in my opinion, often more life threatening than cancer.
I have sometimes remarked to patients that we do not really know anything about life and death. The soul creates life, and the soul takes it away. I therefore try, in my consultations, to awaken a sense of who this soul is. My idea is that if I can facilitate an awareness similar to that reported by people who have had near death experiences, the patient will heal naturally without dependency on modalities that hurt and maim. If I were wrong about this, there would be no cases of spontaneous remission to challenge skeptics. The question is simply: Can such experiences be safely generated on a large scale or are they always highly individualistic? They are, of course, as unique as the persons who have them, but they touch the hearts and lives of people in all nations and of all walks of life. They are therefore as universal as the sun and stars.
I went on to create an entire system of healing, based in part on astrology but also on the more esoteric components of our psyche. In 1987, I was awarded a doctorate of medicine in Copenhagen (from Medicina Alternativa). Grateful for the acknowledgment, I accepted the degree but am quick to point out that I did not attend medical school. The award was based on my contributions to the broader field of healing, not mastery of a conventional curriculum. In 1995, I was awarded a second doctorate for my work on escharotic treatments of cancer. This award was given by the Open International University in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Again, I felt honored by the recognition, a doctorate of science, despite the fact that I consider myself to be more a mystic than a scientist. For me, the book has been more of an ethnobotanical study than a medical study. I was intrigued by the history of medicine, by the suppression of botanical medicine, first by the Inquisition and later by people whose minds are closed because of their "science." I was heartened by the fact that an isolated individual, such as Constantine Rafinesque, spent years with medicine men of the Bayou when fashion would have dictated that he spend his time otherwise.
I was even more deeply touched that a people so persecuted and mistreated by invaders from the other side of the Atlantic gave to those same colonists the keys to survival. I have never seen such an injustice repaid with such generosity, and it is for such reasons that I have been unable to be silent about a treatment that offers so much for so many.
My Beliefs
In trying to define my beliefs and those underlying the church I created as an outer statement of my innermost beliefs, I realized how very private much of my being is. However, it feels important to describe some of the tenets that direct my life and my service.
At the age of four, I was very unhappy about circumstances on this Planet and asked God to take me home. I stood out in my front yard and looked up in the Sky and said that this is a place where people hurt each other, where they destroy animals, and where they have no reverence for life. I begged to be relieved of my life so I could go to a place of love and harmony.
I saw a face in the Heavens. A great being began speaking. I did not believe then or now that He was God, merely one of His trusted servants. He said I had until I was 35 or 40 to make myself as perfect as possible and then my work would begin. At 30, I began living as though I were subject to religious vows. At 35, I took those vows, and later was ordained so that I could begin building my church.
My deepest belief is that all is love. However, we are lost, and we search frantically for what is missing so that we will feel our true natures and be complete.
Love is both passionate and gentle. It is passionate in the classical sense: inspired, reverent, fervent, alive with Divinity. If you love, you see the divinity in God’s creation. You see it in people, in animals, in plants, in the movement of air and water, in the Cosmic Grandeur. I cannot look at the Sky and feel important. I am in awe of the Majesty and humble. When I look down, I see nothing but work for I see a world totally out of balance.
I made my commitment to do my part to remedy whatever can be healed. Where health and healing are concerned, I subscribe to the same beliefs that govern my innermost and most private life.
I subscribe to the doctrine of harmlessness. It is for this reason that I cannot embrace modern medicine. I cannot accept medicine that intrudes morbid substances into the body, that uses toxic chemicals to treat illnesses, that causes side effects that are sometimes more horrible than the original illness. I also cannot accept a system of medicine that has been founded on cruel experiments on innocent animals. I do not believe that my well being requires the suffering of any other creature—and I cannot deviate from this belief and still hope to function as a soul.
At the tender age of three, I was a victim of modern medicine. I received a tainted smallpox vaccine that caused serious lifelong problems. Later, I was posted with the State Department in Vietnam and India. I was subjected to constant inoculations and was very ill as a result of more tainted vaccines and the methods forced on me by the Government to treat my symptoms. I was medically evacuated and unable to work at a normal pace for more than ten years. During this time, my own system of healing evolved.
It began with a study of illness from what we might called a spiritual perspective. I meditated and read and began to understand the symbolism of diseases. I grounded this by reading modern medical studies that helped me to interface the esoteric and exoteric aspects of disease.
At that time, I was deeply influenced by my own meditations and the insights that were given to me during my times of deepest receptivity to the unseen worlds. The complete uniqueness of every individual’s circumstances overshadowed all the generalities that dominate modern medicine. It was clear that we are all exposed to similar pathogens but our reactions differ as should therefore the treatments.
My first prepared lecture was "astroendocrinology," my study of the relationship of the subtle aspects of the psyche to the functioning of the endocrine system. I flew to San Francisco but was not permitted to deliver the paper. Nevertheless, "astroendocrinology" was the first of the four cornerstones of my work. The second involved stress. People have skill in some areas and a lack thereof in others. What causes stress and how we handle it is also therefore unique to each individual.
The third stage of my system of healing was energetic. Knowing that there are sweeping differences between individuals, I sought to understand the imbalances and the measures that restore balance. It was at this time that I developed my material on Kitchen Doctor, basic herbal and dietary strategies that relieve symptoms (but do not actually cure disease.) I built up this very practical system after much study of Ayurveda, but I was influenced by other Eastern systems of healing as well. The dietary principles and measures were followed by the herbal; and, I am happy to say that I am now a great admirer of the healing gifts of plants.
The fourth piece of the system stemmed from my efforts to reconcile the psychological dimensions of experience with the spiritual forces that impart life to us. A part of this work began when still very young, a part when I became involved with music therapy, and a part when I went through my own dark night of the soul. I realized that I had to facilitate ways for the dark and light to meet in a place of mutual understanding and cooperation. I also understood that while we cannot live for self alone, we also cannot live without inspiration. Somewhere between the need to respond to God’s will and the need to survive as individuals, we have to make peace. I forged the tools to assist the awakening of certain insights that I feel make for a relatively complete system of healing.
From cancersalves.com
From soaringspiritwithtears.com
Though this site was born in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the name Soaring Spirit with Tears came many years earlier and the dot com version of the name was registered several years ago and was, in fact, the name under which all my sites were hosted until this Spring.
The story of Soaring Spirit with Tears is told on this site. It is my medicine name and was first disclosed to a few students when I was trying to help them discover their medicine names by making up a story that would show how to reconcile the subconscious and superconscious aspects of our being with our ego identities. My idea then, as now, is that by definition, we are not aware of what is in our unconscious, and yet, contrary to many theories of individualism, our fate originates in the vast unknown of these same parts of our being.
I'm a medical astrologer with a few fingers in other pies as well. I channel and I do music therapy; and I'm a longtime student of Ayurveda and herbalism and author of a book on botanical treatments of cancer. The astrologer wanted to help people understand what is lunar, what is solar, and what comes through the Ascendant (rising sign) of the horoscope. To make the exercise easier for students, I explained that when one goes on a date, it is the more conscious parts that engage in activities and conversation, but when one starts living with another person, it is surprising how many assumptions we make about living that do not originate in the conscious mind. These opinions exist deep down in our lunar memories and are based on experiences we have had in the past and how we have interpreted these experiences.
To feel without the overlay of these opinions would mean we could rise to a point in which we see things as they are rather than as they seem to us to be. Many meditation practices facilitate this kind of direct knowing, but it is surprising how even the best-intentioned devotee can become an ordinary human being when the biases of the unconscious begin to operate . . . as they generally do when we attempt to make decisions based on our need for material security, education, entertainment, relationship, and so forth. The more homogeneous our surroundings, the more likely it is that our views are reinforced by the outer world, but the minute we venture beyond our own worlds, we have to start processing impressions that differ from our own.
At a time such as this, I am extremely grateful for my Sagittarius Moon in the ninth house and also somewhat alarmed by its opposition to Uranus for I am certainly acting out old iconoclastic roles, but always in the sincerest hope for a better and more Divine world.
I spent much of my life traveling. From 1952, when I was sent away from home to boarding school, to 1972 when I came back to Hawaii after years of adventures, I can honestly say that my suitcase was almost never out of my sight.
Interestingly, many of the places I traveled are now prominently in the news. I majored in Asian Studies and once upon a time spoke fluent Indonesian and Japanese. I went to Japan for the first time in 1962 and Indonesia at a time of rioting, runaway inflation, and volcanic eruptions (1963). My mother sent me a telegram reading, "Meet me in Singapore on Monday or Bangkok on Wednesday. Love, Mommie." It's a miracle I got the telegram and perhaps less of a miracle that PanAm was willing to disclose her flight number and arrival time. We got to Saigon in time to see monks immolating themselves, and my evident attraction to danger and hot spots seemed never to abate.
I argued against the war in Vietnam from minutes after the incident in the Gulf of Tonkin and ended up working for the State Department in Saigon and being there during the Tet Offensive. Needless-to-say, when I was in India, my timing was also perfect as I witnessed drought and floods and the endless stream of refugees from Tibet, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In other words, I am no foreigner to calamity nor, I am sorry to say, to the thinking that becomes policy. At a time such as this, I cannot be silent as the whole world watches to see whether those who lead have the courage to seek peace and to make the concessions that are needed to bring the world into balance and harmony.
There is much more to this. Just as I spent many years exploring the people and places of this beautiful Planet, I spent twenty years delving into the unconscious, exploring the karmic patterns that breed the problems we face at critical moments of our incarnational experience. Also, in my dedication to the relief of suffering, I have tried to assist those who are committed to forging conscious relationships to their unconscious selves, to recognizing the inspiration and idealism that shines from the soul and the justifiable hesitation and equivocation that arises from ancient memories. Unlike many, I am not an advocate for rising above the self and acting with the reckless abandon of the soul. I support creative alliances between the various parts of our psyche that enable people to function with wholeness and holiness.
I do not think that we will achieve immortality in our present physical bodies, but we can aspire to a more conscious working relationship with the various parts of our own being. In saying this, I would not for a minute suggest that the task is easy, but I would say that the hundredth monkey effect virtually guarantees that every time one person succeeds, it will be easier for the next. Likewise, as we resolve our internal issues, it will be easier to resolve our issues with what appears to be the outer world. We create the circumstances around us by some sort of consensual contract with others as well as our own need to learn. The better we demonstrate our capacity to deal compassionately and wisely with our own conflicts and dilemmas, the more likely it is that others will discover the path to their resolution.
I have Pisces rising and I am deeply troubled by the present state of affairs. I am a passionate environmentalist, a dedicated healer, and a proponent of peace. We need to learn to live shoulder to shoulder with each other on this crowded Planet. We need to learn to take care of our inner and outer Space and to see ourselves as guests who will one day leave this place, hopefully for a better world, but hopefully too leaving behind something better than we find today.
God bless.
Ingrid in Tibet
Ingrid and Puppy
