We recognize that there is some spiritual validity or some spiritual progress that results from becoming more whole. The basis of many of the great spiritual traditions is that it's separation -- separation from God, separation from each other -- that creates suffering, and it's reconnection that creates healing. So with the use of natural medicine we look to nature as the ultimate authority. Maybe not the ultimate, but a great authority, on how it all fits together. Nature is the master plan as far as the integration of all the different living beings. So natural healing methods have to do with bringing the pieces back into conjunction and into coordination and into unity, in a way that is beneficial to the whole as well as to each of the pieces.

DR: What is it about substances like isolated vitamins in a pill, or synthetic prescription medications, that makes it more difficult, or impossible, for these to bring about this sort of reconnection?

BR: The answer to your question lies in another question. How do we prepare those things? We split them off. There we are, taking nature and splitting it into pieces, some of them really bizarre. When it comes to these synthetic drugs, many of them are substances that have never existed on the earth before. After we've created such separation in those substances, how can they carry a healing message? How can their effect be healing, when they are the manifestation of splitting and separation?

DR: Does that lead you to entirely reject the use of prescription medications, or do you feel that there are certain circumstances in which that is the right choice?

RB: I think there are rare circumstances where that's the ideal choice. There are some circumstances where that's what we need to use right now, simply because we've created such a mess and that may be one small step toward resolving the mess. I do not mean to imply that conventional pharmaceutical drugs are a goal. I think that they are, at best, a means toward extricating yourself from their use. I mean, we may need to use one of them temporarily, as a part of a process to step out of that morass of cause and effect that we've created, to move toward a more genuine healing.

The way I usually put it is, conventional medications can be useful to buy time. We can use them to hold back the pain or the suffering long enough to find a more natural solution that will move us into a true healing. But it's very rare that these medications actually contribute to genuine healing. They may be on the scene if someone is going through their own personal process that is healing, and the drug may in some incidental way be used by that person as they're moving through their healing. But they generally do not have the capacity to engender a true healing, because that isn't what they're about. They're generally about suppressing and maintaining the split-off condition for a while, and that has unfortunately become a way that we deal with pain, by trying to suppress our system's impulse to move through the suffering that healing may involve.

We suppress that crisis because it causes us discomfort, but it's usually necessary to go through some kind of crisis and discomfort as you reorganize. It's like if you have a company and it's a mess and you really need to reorganize from the bottom up. Everybody knows this is going to be painful process, but we also know that by the time we're finished, everything is going to run better and we're going to be glad we did it. That's sort of the way the healing process works too.