Great civilizations have come and gone, and each civilization has had its own unique methods of achieving physical, emotional and mental health. Yet when one studies any of these ancient healing arts, it becomes apparent that, like fine arts and culture, healing arts are always a reflection of the general level of awareness present in that particular civilization. Apart from physical injury, the causes of the types of diseases that were prevalent in any one civilization, upon careful study, are seen to have their roots in the prevailing mindsets common to the people of that civilization. Most notably, many of the ancient physicians, irrespective of the civilization to which they belonged, not only treated the disease, but also instructed their patients on how to correct the mindset causing the disease. This is true healing; namely, hiasis, as opposed to merely treating the symptoms of the disease. This is vitally important, for the disease will continue to remanifest whilst the cause remains intact.
The word hiasis, which comes from Greek, means that when an ailment occurs and has been fully understood, new knowledge is brought forth that the person suffering from the ailment did not have previously. The implications within this are clear: we call forth disease, or more precisely, dis-ease, when a lack of knowledge throws an area in our lives out of balance. The result of this imbalance first manifests within us as a dis-ease at a psychological level, but unless remedied, will eventually also manifest as a physical disease. Consequently, we can see how very important it is to address not only the symptoms of the disease, but also its cause; for invariably it is this cause that reveals the knowledge we have been lacking, and which was responsible for making us ill to start with.
No one can deny that the 20th century marked huge achievements in the fields of science and practical medicine. This is primarily due to the vast improvements made in clinical, laboratory and instrumental diagnostics, to perfecting surgical skill, and to the development of pharmacotherapy (medical drugs). However, despite this huge advancement in modern-day healing, we cannot ignore the many disastrous side-effects of allopathic medicine:
From the above it is clear that the approach to health and healing taken by prior civilizations was much more holistic than our modern approach, where patients are merely cured of the physical symptoms of a disease, whilst leaving the cause unaddressed. Apart from this, the most dire effect of our modern approach is to encourage us to hand over our power to the physician, whereby we stop taking any personal responsibility for our own health. The most debilitating consequence of this disempowerment is that humanity today is completely subject to men and women who, far from having chosen medicine because of their great love for healing, have entered medicine only because it is a financially lucrative business. Today's physicians are also backed and supported by pharmaceutical giants, for whom financial dividends are likewise much more important than the genuine health of people the world over.
Consequently, allopathic medicine has become an extremely mercenary business, and like all mercenary businesses today, modern forms of healing also have an inbuilt obsolescence factor.
Yet this sad state of affairs need not be. We are all the masters of our own destiny, and we should therefore also be the masters of our own personal power, and take full responsibility for the circumstances, as well as the conditions we manifest within our lives, including the condition of our health: physical, emotional and mental.
