This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
So, what is the task of the medical system? Our modern view of disease is that disease is centered in the body. The older view of disease is that it is soul loss, a loss of connection, of meaning, of purpose, of essence. If this is so, the real task of the medical system is to heal soul loss, to aid in the retrieval of the soul. The entire culture is ill with soul loss. What is needed is not to bring spirit into our work, to develop more of a spiritual practice or to go to church more. Our task is to recognize that we are always on sacred ground, that there is no split between the sacred and secular. That the living god is dancing on our back. That there is no task that is not sacred in nature and no relationship that is not sacred in nature. Life is a spiritual practice. Health care, which serves life, is a spiritual practice. Disease is a spiritual path, too. Much illness is caused by the loss of the soul. Many, many people live lives that are empty. This emptiness is caused, in some part, by living without meaning, or with meaning that is much too small, too trivial, or too material for the needs of a human being.
Aid | Church | Culture | Disease | God | Health | Life | Life | Meaning | Nature | People | Practice | Relationship | Sacred | Soul | Spirit | System | Loss | God |
The yin is a way of seeing, a way of understanding the world, a way of formulating solutions, and a very powerful way of acting. Access to sacred experience requires us to reclaim our feminine capacity, to value the subjective, the intuitive, the qualitative, to not limit our focus to the surfaces of things. We all know the power of the masculine principle, especially in health care. There are many people who would have died long before today without the powerful, life-saving interventions of masculine-principle oriented medicine. I am one of them. So it is not about throwing away the masculine principle; it is about reclaiming wholeness, integrity.
Experience | Focus | Health | People | Power | Sacred | Understanding | Value |
Addiction should never be treated as a crime. It has to be treated as a health problem. We do not send alcoholics to jail in this country. Over 500,000 people are in our jails who are nonviolent drug users.
Ralph Ellison, fully Ralph Waldo Ellison
I am a novelist, not an activist... But I think that no one who reads what I write or who listens to my lectures can doubt that I am enlisted in the freedom movement. As an individual, I am primarily responsible for the health of American literature and culture. When I write, I am trying to make sense out of chaos. To think that a writer must think about his Negroness is to fall into a trap.
Randolph Bourne, fully Randolph Silliman Bourne
War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense...the nation in war-time attains a uniformity of feeling, a hierarchy of values culminating at the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which could not possibly be produced through any other agency than war...The State is intimately connected with war, for it is the organization of the collective community when it acts in a political manner, and to act in a political manner towards a rival group has meant, throughout all history - war.
Cooperation | Government | Health | History | Obedience | Organization | Society | Uniformity | Society | Government |
Randolph Bourne, fully Randolph Silliman Bourne
The State represents all the autocratic, arbitrary, coercive, belligerent forces within a social group, it is a sort of complexus of everything most distasteful to the modern free creative spirit, the feeling for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. War is the health of the State. Only when the State is at war does the modern society function with that unity of sentiment, simple uncritical patriotic devotion, cooperation of services, which have always been the ideal of the State lover...A nation's patriotic history is solely the history of its wars, that is, of the State in its health and glorious functioning. So in responding to the appeal of the flag, we are responding to the appeal of the State, to the symbol of the herd organized as an offensive and defensive body, conscious of its prowess and its mystical herd-strength...
Cooperation | Health | History | Mystical | Prowess | Society | Unity | War | Society |
In an age where public health has never been better provided for, and medical men enjoy a respect formerly reserved for the aristocracy and the clergy, millions of people are unwell, or merely feel unwell, or are in dread lest at some future time they may become unwell.
Age | Better | Dread | Future | Health | Men | People | Public | Respect | Time | Respect |
Gluttony is the source of all our infirmities, and the fountain of all our diseases. As a lamp is choked by a superabundance of oil, a fire extinguished by excess of fuel, so is the natural health of the body destroyed by intemperate diet.
In Koln, a town of monks and bones, And pavement fang'd with murderous stones, And rags and hags, and hideous wenches, I counted two-and-seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The River Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, nymphs! what power divine Shall henceforth whash the river Rhine.
Eternal | Evil | Father | Grace | Health | Hope | Love | Mother | Reverence | Strength |
Now this is the Law of the Jungle -- as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back -- For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
From this day forward, somebody propose it, liberals should not be allowed to buy guns. It's just that simple. Liberals should have their speech controlled and not be allowed to buy guns. I mean if we want to get serious about this, if we want to face this head on, we’re gonna have to openly admit, liberals should not be allowed to buy guns, nor should they be allowed to use computer keyboards or typewriters, word processors or e-mails, and they should have their speech controlled. If we did those three or four things, I can’t tell you what a sane, calm, civil, fun-loving society we would have. Take guns out of the possession, out of the hands of liberals, take their typewriters and their keyboards away from ‘em, don’t let ‘em anywhere near a gun, and control their speech. You would wipe out 90% of the crime, 85 to 95% of the hate, and a hundred percent of the lies from society.
Care | Change | Government | Health | Nothing | Relationship | Will | Government |
Our nation was created in ways that allow human potential to prosper, and it created the greatest nation for people in the history of humanity. Now Obama is dismantling it, because he has no appreciation for our greatness. In fact, he resents it. He blames this country for whatever evils he sees around the world.
Care | Health | Plan | Will | Understand |
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
The filth and noise of the crowded streets soon destroy the elasticity of health which belongs to the country boy.
Debt | Health | Means | Obligation | Sacred |
Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes
The general review of the past tends to satisfy me with my political life. No man, I suppose, ever came up to his ideal. The first half [of] my political life was first to resist the increase of slavery and secondly to destroy it.... The second half of my political life has been to rebuild, and to get rid of the despotic and corrupting tendencies and the animosities of the war, and other legacies of slavery.
O my God, what must a soul be like when it is in this state! It longs to be all one tongue with which to praise the Lord. It utters a thousand pious follies, in a continuous endeavor to please Him who thus possesses it.
Art | Comfort | Day | Desire | Effort | Friend | Good | Health | Joy | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Strength | Trust | World | Art | Think |
Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL
Before you act consider; when you have considered, tis fully time to act.
In this way, through experience they will be formed adequately, will be encouraged, and will be capable of rendering service to God.
Sallust, full name Carus Valerius Sailustius Crispus NULL
The fame that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; intellectual superiority is a possession glorious and eternal.