The Elements of Earth and Water: Alchemy and the Art of Healing
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Authors
Rowan, Audrey E.
Issue Date
2013
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Naturopathy , Alchemy , Goethean phenomenological method
Alternative Title
Abstract
The present study, rather than beginning with a relatively obvious perceptual experience and attempting to restrain the potentially abstract influence of conceptualization as would be the case in a more strict phenomenological model, attempts to work on the basis of the evolving, interpenetrating, and mutually-influencing progression of experience that works between and with both the conceptual and the perceptual on an equal basis. Knowledge is not solely conceptual, but instead is always situated in and arises out of the interpenetration between the intricately felt perceptual and the conceptual aspects of experience as a whole. A recognition of both the unity of experience and its equally important polar conceptual and perceptual aspects. The Goethean phenomenological method is the most appropriate for this study because of its unique ability to weave together subjective and objective aspects of experience. Rather than seeing this, as would a later, reductionist science, as simply a projection of fantasy onto a dead, abstract world, the alchemists recognized the specific workings of their central principle: “As above, so below; as within, so without.” The alchemists understood that the only reason the processes of the natural world could be elaborated and understood was because the same processes were at work within the individual. The following study attempts to illuminate the practical application of these principles in the art of Naturopathic medicine, a medicine based in holism and vitalism. In its overall form, structure and composition, the microcosm of the human body reflects the macrocosm of Nature. Disease and dysfunction arise when there is imbalance; healing consists of bringing the microcosm of the human body back into balance with the macrocosm of Nature.
Description
This thesis is being archived as a Digitized Shelf Copy for campus access to current students and staff only. We currently cannot provide this open access without the author's permission. If you are the author of this work and desire to provide it open access or wish access removed, please contact the Wahlstrom Library to discuss permission.
Citation
A.E. Rowan, "The Elements of Earth and Water: Alchemy and the Art of Healing", ND dissertation, College of Naturopathic Medicine, Univ. of Bridgeport, Bridgeport, CT, 2013.