Abstract

A silent revolution has occurred in the most highly industrialized countries. This is the utilization and acceptance of various healing practices (which for convenience has often been labeled as “alternative medicine,” a.k.a. “whole person healing”) by an enormous fraction of the population. Moreover, this population cohort is much wealthier and better educated than the average citizen. It is no longer possible for this generation in the Western world to ignore or denigrate the medicine and healing practices used by hundreds of millions in other cultures. What is obviously needed is a retreat from the innate skeptical reaction of much of the stance of western medicine, the development of a mutual respect for other cultures and their achievements, and a genuinely open, scientific and wholistic approach to the issues, especially in this context, to other practices of whole person healing.