I got an e-mail from a health professional yesterday (another Aussie) who was a newcomer to peak oil, asking me what I thought might work in the future. I have listed some thoughts below. Please recognise that it is difficult to walk the tight-rope of controversy that exists between conventional medicine and complementary medicine at the moment. I choose to walk it, however, because:

• Modern medicine as we know it must fail sooner or later (for the reasons discussed on this site). Parts will remain but it is impossible to foresee which bits, or how they will be organised and delivered to people.

• CAM is very popular with people, and evidence is accumulating about its effectiveness from randomised trials, etc. One must remember that there can be no absolutes in medicine, and that future health care will probably be an eclectic mix of what works, both “conventional” and CAM (look at Cuba).

• The people who have survived major challenges and subsequently documented their experiences (see The Survivor Personality at the bottom of the booklist in the sidebar) are those who have remained flexible and creatively used whatever resources that were available. I think that the future may be so desperate that we cannot afford to neglect any possibly useful modality, and must be willing to put our biases and prejudices aside (ie both pro- and anti- CAM), at least for the purposes of this thought experiment.

• I feel that I have an ethical duty to the readers of this blog to present as full a range of information as possible, even if some of it is challenging, or flies in the face of currently-accepted practice. I am also very interested in the principles and philosophies behind the things that we see in our worlds, and feel that these sorts of articles are widely applicable and generalisable.

I have been thinking about evidence-based medicine, how it might be relevant to the future, but also how it depends on oil (at the moment); also how we might do research in the future (and why it is important that we do), and will discuss those issues in a future posting.

You need to differentiate between modalities that you’ll use for yourself and your family, and those that you will offer to your post-carbon community professionally. The latter group need more skills / training and at least at the moment a formal qualification. The former group you can do just with a book or two and a little practice on willing crash-test dummies (ie your family and close friends).

You also need to differentiate between those that need external supplies (like herbs) and those that don’t (like reiki). Because the future is unpredictable, it’s impossible to tell what will happen, and how stable it might be (for example consider Cuba versus Zimbabwe).

We just quickly need to consider where I’m coming from - my two big things are acupuncture and reiki, but I also have some (admittedly fairly basic) knowledge of herbal medicine and mind-body techniques / hypnosis. My apologies because I don’t know anything really about chiropractic or osteopathy training or equipment, and how difficult it would be to learn and practice.

Another thought: the timing of peak oil is unpredictable and possibly soon. The subsequent disruptions are also unknowable. Given those two factors, there will be an opportunity cost in both time and money to learn something (ie once you chose you can’t learn something else at the same time). So my advice on selecting:

• Pick what most appeals to you - you need to like it to remember it if you don’t have books etc in the future.
• Any knowledge will be helpful if you know more than anyone else in your local community.
• Decide whether you need a formal qualification or not. Reasons for: In-depth information; Regulatory requirements; Peer recognition; Clinical experience. Main reasons against are the opportunity costs (time, expense, learning other things).
• Consider the points discussed below.

Supplies needed and steep learning curve - herbalism
I have noted below some of the ideas that come to me about herbalism in a post-oil future. Note that this is not a full consideration, rather some jottings about the strengths and weakness. I have made a distinction between whether supplies are needed or not, and whether it can be quickly learned or not (shallow versus steep learning curve):

1. Sooner or later you’ll have to rely on what you can grow and process locally, because commercial liquid extracts etc will disappear.
2. You will be limited to what grows in your location, and the ones that you can successfully save seed from and regrow (if annuals) and those that are frost, drought or salt tolerant, or whatever, depending where you live.
3. If you’re looking at ones that you can produce yourself, remember the native ones that grow wild by themselves and that have been used for millenia by indigenous peoples. Perhaps you might buy yourself a “native medicinal plants” type of book and a plant identification guide and do some bushwalking in your local area.
4. Conversely, you won’t be limited to local native plants - you can plant whatever will grow (eg useful plants like ginseng become accessible), but remember that for some plants it takes a few years before they “bear fruit”.
5. For the ones that you grow yourself, consider how you might harvest, process (drying, liquid extraction or essential oil distillation, etc), and store them (without refrigeration or plastic). You would need to look at how herbal remedies were traditionally prepared.
6. Also consider what might happen if you were forced to move quickly (by human or natural disasters etc) and how you might transport your supplies.

Supplies needed and shallow learning curve - flower essences
Please suspend disbelief for this section, if you are inclined to dismiss it out of hand. Or perhaps skip down two sections to “Mind-Body Techniques”.

The healing systems that rely on the use of essences are more bioenergy ones than herbal ones. They therefore straddle this category and the next one. They depend on outside supplies of the various essences (such as Bach Flowers or Australian Bush Flower Essences), but because they are based on the idea of captured energy (ie they “represent” and “transmit” the bioenergy of each plant, rather than containing detectable active substances), they can be used to prepare new essences on-site (ie they act as the “mother essence”, and can be used to prepare an awful lot of derivative essences.

The so-prepared daughter or child essences can then be used for healing. Note that these techniques are generally very gentle and mostly used for emotional, rather than physical, healing. So while you might eventually run out, if husbanded properly, you might not for a very long time, or never. They are also very portable.

So get some supplies in if you want to go this way. You can also learn it quickly from books if you’re not interested in a formal qualification, or do weekend workshop etc that are pretty time effective. By the way, I’ve never done any training in these, just have a couple of books and a bit of Rescue Remedy that I find works well for my children. Note that there is not, to my knowledge, a significant acceptable evidence base.

No supplies needed and shallow learning curve (sort of) - bioenergetic therapies
Let’s return to the difference between a complementary therapy that you learn as a profession, and one that you learn primarily to treat yourself and your family. In a previous blog entry I have discussed the importance of taking self-responsibility for one’s own health generally, end especially after peak oil when you will need to rely on your own resources a lot more than you do now.

The bioenergetic therapies (primarily qi gong, reiki, healing touch, shamanism, pranic therapy, and others) admirably fulfil the need for a personal and equipment-free self-therapy. Why do I say this?

Firstly, the fundamentals are usually quickly grasped. It’s just the practice that takes time. Generally what you put into the esoteric therapies pays off, often in multiples (if one has the right intention). It is the same idea as learning tennis - once you know how to hold a racquet, hit a ball, and the fundamental rules, the more you practice the better you get. Same with reiki.

Next, unlike tennis, you don’t really need any equipment other than yourself - including your hands, body, breath and intention.

Thirdly, these therapies make a wonderful daily wellness practice. Unfortunately you do need to do it daily (or almost) to get the most benefit.

Fourthly, it is entirely portable, you never need to remember to take it with you, you have it even in emergencies, and if you need to evacuate an area quickly.

Next, it’s also great for children and pets, and can be very calming for all when stress is high.

Lastly, it can be extended to more of a profession if you so desire (with extra training and practice), thereby giving you something to do after peak oil.

And one last thought. It has been an interesting anthropological journey of discovery to find that many (unrelated) cultures around the world have developed their own version of shamanism, with remarkable similarities given the isolation of some societies. Why is this?

No supplies needed and steeper learning curve - mind-body medicine.
Included in this group is hypnosis and meditation, but also prayer, NLP, creative visualisation, positive affirmations, guided imagery, and a host of other techniques. Many of the things that I discussed in the bioenergetics section is relevant to mind-body techniques as well. Again the distinction between self and others arises. The learning curve is probably shallow for self-use of these practices, but much steeper if one wants to use them professionally with clients. They are also harder (but not impossible) to use with children. Again note that practices of this type have been around in traditional societies for a very long time: consider prayer and ritual, for instance.

Equipment needed and steep learning curve - traditional chinese medicine
To a large degree the same arguments apply here as listed for herbal medicine. There is a steep learning curve for professional acupuncture, but I feel that it is well worth it if you want to be a professional practitioner (based on its effectiveness in musculoskeletal pain in particular but many other diseases in general. Good quality evidence of its benefits is also mounting, and note that Cuba has embraced it whole-heartedly). Three thoughts about needles:

1. Currently they are almost exclusively single-use, so much so that it is extremely difficult to find reusable ones (and one must then consider infection-control issues, etc). Access to supplies is therefore an issue unless you can stockpile, but even then you must consider cost, portability and security.
2. Many materials other than surgical-grade stainless steel were used by the ancient Chinese to make acupuncture needles, so there is a precedent to make them locally.
3. Battery-powered laser could be used (with solar recharging) until the batteries fizzed: It is effectively and fairly commonly used in Western-style acupuncture.

At the personal level, I would commend acupressure as a very worthwhile practice. Just buy a book or two and there’ll be hours of fun to be had in the comfort and privacy of your own home. Seriously though, it can be very useful especially for pain relief, including in children and can be learned in a few hours by applying it as needed.

Links and Resources

Complementary and alternative medicine at the US National Institutes of Health:

Acupuncture

Herbalism

Mind-body

Bioenergy

TCM

Prayer