My real profession
is medical astrology. I started astroheal.com soon
after cancersalves.com and later added astroheal.net and astrologyofhealing.com (for
correspondence course students.) The site that has the most visitors
is kitchendoctor.com and
my most personal site, where I express a range of thoughts on politics,
social action, and metaphysics is soaringspiritwithtears.com.
My online store is Sacred
Medicine Sanctuary and my publishing company is Seventh
Ray Press. I also have a site for Ayurvedic medicine, doshabalance.com and
a new one devoted exclusively to mold issues.
Until people have recovered from the tsunami in South Asia, 10% of
all e-commerce generated on any of my sites will go to support the
relief efforts of Ammachi.
The Mission of
this Site
During a dark night of soul
following the death of someone very dear to me, I went into what
many would call a shamanic phase. It was a spiritual turning point
in my life because it involved not just what some would call the
marriage of darkness and light but also the profound recognition
of the interdependency of yin and yang, feminine and masculine, receptivity
and action.
To make a complex process understandable
to others, I can provide a context that will allow some people an
instant insight into what was a profound and transformative experience
for me, one spanning years, not the seconds one usually spends on
a web page.
When the AIDS epidemic began,
I said to friends and colleagues, "Now we have a virus bigger
than the bomb." As a medical philosopher and author, I was totally
aware that there was no reason to expect a sexually transmitted disease
to have an epidemiology different from any other sexually transmitted
disease: herpes or chlamydia. Initially, I did what I always do:
read everything that was published and talked to patients to get
a sense of the profile. It became immediately apparent to me that
discussing AIDS and cancer in the same sentence—as immune system
problems—was a disservice. In Chinese medicine, AIDS was being
described as a yin deficiency condition and in Africa, it was called
the slimming disease. As I observed more, I realized the extent of
the depletion of the patient and yet, on the whole, the patients
were "on fire" creatively and often socially. In many ways,
they seemed to be more alive than almost anyone else I knew, but
the anchors for all this life were eroding. The resulting attrition
left insufficient substance, not enough feminine energy to hold the
masculine incarnate.
I had been working with cancer
for many years before the AIDS issue arose. I always had the opposite
sense about cancer. It seemed to be a disease of surfeit that eventually
choked off the supply of vitality that was necessary to sustain the
form. It was almost as if the material part of existence had gone
off by itself and lost its connection to the source of inspiration
and life. So, I saw these two conditions as opposites: yin deficiency
and yin surfeit.
Very gradually, I developed
dietary and herbal protocols and life strategies for correcting the
imbalances, but as my involvement continued, I came to accept that
the AIDS epidemic was not natural and would not have happened without
the misapplication of scientific possibilities to political agendas.
Being an astrologer, I was reading predictions out of India that
AIDS would decimate the world population, and it was not long before
we heard of areas in Africa, like Zaire, where the infection rate
had reached 100%. As we have also seen, response to the crisis has
been slow and inadequate and is only now being spurred with the help
of celebrities, many of whom have conscience and visibility far exceeding
the impact of charitable organizations.
My life is always characterized
by special events—usually shocking—that change my understanding
irrevocably. I remember the first time I heard the name Leonard Horowitz,
this in the context of the diabolical links connecting people with
power to the spread of AIDS. It was not many years later that Len
stunned the world that could hear with similarly disturbing news
on cancer, this time suggesting that certain polio vaccines were
contaminated with Simian virus 40, usually abbreviated SV40, a known
cause of lymphatic cancers.
I grew up in a home in which
my father was involved in the creation of missiles and satellites.
I was always concerned that science be used in an ethical way. I
was devastated as a child to learn that the scientists generally
abdicated the responsibility for how theirinventions are used to
politicians. Of course, we all know this, but sometimes we need to
be reminded.
Fresh out of grad school, I
worked on Wall Street for a while, in an investment bank. During
Vatican II, the chemical analyst was on vacation and I was asked
to look at which stocks to buy if the Pope approved birth control.
This was the summer that cost me my innocence. I found that pharmaceutical
companies were under such great pressure from management to develop
products for the market that research was often falsified so as to
beat the competition in the race, not for cures, but for market share.
I vowed to stop taking anything that had not been available for at
least 25 years, preferably 50.
As the Vietnam War accelerated
and my passion to end it crescendoed, I took a job with the State
Department in Saigon. I had to have a lot of immunizations. I became
very ill after the first typhoid injection (in New York) and this
syndrome spiraled out of control once I was in Vietnam. I ran constant
fevers and came to see the limitations of medical training and expertise.
I went to India after Vietnam and was medical evacuated in the late
60s. It seems they had figured out a short cut for the lab tests
that happened always to give negative results. I heard the doctors
talking to each other and saying I would die. I knew they were wrong
and some friends helped me to escape from the hospital. My absence
wasn't noticed for 6-7 weeks. I was at home in Kona with my mother.
I don't want to bore you with my saga but suffice it to say that
I was very near the point at which I decided never to see another
doctor. I figured that if I were to survive, I would need to learn
how to care for my own body and take responsibility myself.

Some of what I learned in an
experiential way is now common knowledge among the cognoscenti, but
the average person, not to mention the typical politician, tends
to put blind faith in modern medicine and to assume that billions
of dollars will eventually solve all problems. Personally, I have
no doubt that the problems could be solved with the right funding,
but this funding will not occur so long as the pharmaceutical companies
fund the political campaigns of officials who control the large social
programs and regulating agencies.
The need for ethical approaches
to humanitarian issues has been known to me for so long that I realized
I will burn up inside if I do not take a strong position "for
life." Before the name bioethika came to me, I had already been
gestating a position for many, many years. I want to say, however,
that I am a Buddhist and I believe strongly that no one should copy
me or follow me or even believe me unless what I say also makes sense
to you.
One of my first articles on
Buddhism was about the Eightfold Noble Path. This is basically the
ethical foundation for living in a socially constructive way that
reduces the risk of generating new imbalances and the karmic need
to redress those imbalances. The Buddha taught that ignorance is
the underlying cause of all suffering. He encouraged us to seek the
truth and to base our actions upon the truth. I am sure that all
genuine spiritual teachers would have no quarrel at all with such
a logical life strategy.
The cause of much suffering
is competition and the corners that are cut so as to prevail in the
cutthroat world of the endless effort to have more than others. Before
I became a professional astrologer, I was an economist. My uncle
was a marine biologist. At the end of his life, he wrote a tiny book
containing his favorite thoughts. He said, "If you wish to understand
Nature, do not disturb her." As I took this to heart, I realized
that Nature does not provide us with a growth economy, merely with
a replacement economy. Nature, in the simplest example, gives us
a harvest and then she rests. The nutrients in the soil determine
the growth of the plants upon which we depend. If we deplete the
soil, we compromise the nutritional value of our food. If we chop
down forests to build houses, we change the oxygen supply of the
Planet in a way that promotes the survival of primordial organisms
over "advanced" life forms. I have often quipped that the
notion that humans are at the top of the food chain must be giving
mold a good laugh.
Only our insufferable arrogance
could possibly convince us that we are the top of anything but the
imbalance threatening the survival of life on Earth.

Bioethika.com is my effort to
show how each of us can live in a way that supports sustainability
and integrity. I will approach the dilemma facing us from many angles
and will be inviting others to contribute to the brain storming and
conversation.
My own input will focus on measures
each can take to reduce our pressure on the imbalance and enhance
our contributions to harmony. Some of these actions will result in
immediate personal benefits, such as to your health and nutrition,
and others will require more effort. I cannot take longer to launch
this effort, and to make time to support it, I will disable the bulletin
boards on my other sites.
Everyone sees the world through
his or her own eyes and windows. I saw the war in Afghanistan and
then in Iraq as savage attempts to grab oil. More than 45 years ago,
I saw a demonstration of an electric car, operating indoors. I thought
these cars would be everywhere by the time I had enough money to
buy my own car. When I was working on Wall Street, I observed the
mergers and acquisitions of oil companies and I thought this was
the swan song, their hedge against the future because oil was becoming
obsolete. When I spent years in meditation in the early 70s, I saw
alternatives to fossil fuels that were clean and inexpensive. When
I saw grotesque cartoon-like films of dinosaurs, I knew that we had
inhaled so much pollution from petrochemicals that our psyches were
becoming imprinted by prehistoric phantoms. When I see denial of
the existence of alien life and cover ups, I know that those with
power are hanging on by the skin of their teeth to the status quo,
in desperate hopes to remain king of the hill for a little longer.
When I see innocent people being killed by the tens of thousands,
I believe the situation has gone too far and we are overdue for a
reassessment of the values guiding our lives.
So, I will be suggesting changes
in habits that will have far-reaching impacts: not just the obvious
shift from genetically modified foods to organic ones but also ways
to support companies with wholesome environmental practices and boycotts
of those that are contributing to the divisiveness and criminality
of corporate and political behavior.
Ingrid Naiman, 2 January 2005
Profession |
Medical astrologer, music therapist,
herbalist. author and speaker. |
Education
B.A. in Asian Studies, 1962,
from the University of Hawaii, East-West Center
M.A. in Economics, 1964, from Yale University
M.D. (M.A.) from Medicina Alternativa in Copenhagen, 1987
D.Sc. (Hon.) from Open International University, Sri Lanka,
1995
|
Hobbies |
Classical music, microscopy,
cross country skiing. |
Favorite
Films |
Gandhi
To inspire and ennoble and show
that against great odds, one person can make a difference
Brother
Sun Sister Moon
To show that the spiritualization
of one life can have powerful impact for centuries
to come
Don Juan DeMarco
To challenge the realities
we so easily accept and renew the foundations of
relationship
Farinelli
Art at its best: great story,
fabulous music, wonderful costumes and cinematography
Also: Meet Joe Black and Sixth Sense |
Favorite
Music |
Italian opera, especially Donizetti,
Bellini, and Verdi and more especially Lucrezia Borgia, Norma,
Don Carlo, and La Forza del Destino. Also: Beethoven, Chopin, and Parish-Alvars.
. . and Saint Saens! and the Minkus Don Quixote with Nureyev! |
Favorite
TV |
The Pet Psychic, The West Wing,
Boston Legal, and sometimes Nova and Great Performances. |
From the past: I Claudius,
Poldark, Donahue, and Bill Moyers NOW. |
|