Foreword
David John Schleich, PhD
George Bernard Shaw famously warned us, as only he could frame such a sentiment, that “we learn from history that we learn nothing from history”.
At the same time, George Santayana, the philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist, equally adept with rhetoric, had something perhaps a bit more optimistic to share, that “those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” So, there is, after all, a way to navigate over time through the vagaries and vicissitudes of events, individuals and groups affecting the progress of naturopathic professional formation.
This remarkable ongoing project is a powerful instrument to help the naturopathic profession move forward positively, anchored to a clear, documented understanding of what came before. It is a tool which will help make sense of the continuum of relations between all that time, to unravel for the careful reader the knot of political, social and epistemological roots which keep manifesting away in contemporary educational, clinical and research challenges.
Having watched closely progressive iterations of this effort by so many people, I can attest to the substantial and enduring value of this Timeline’s detail, to its scholarship, and especially these days can I further attest to how its very careful language contributes valuable information to today’s fierce political and cultural debates. That is, and I am drawing on Immanuel Kant’s exceptional wisdom here for my point, the density and inter-relatedness of its decades-scanning content allow us to discern not only momentum, but also what he calls “a regular movement” in that continuum, which though it be complex, chaotic, repetitive and exasperating, exhibits through its breadth and depth a discernible steadfastness in the end. During worried moments when many of us witness the unrelenting bruising efforts of our detractors, I am reminded of Machiavelli’s dictum, that “human events ever resemble those of preceding times”.
Close reading of all the events, people, institutions and organizations in the naturopathic story will point out the greatest aspect of this contribution to all our collective work, that this history may seem more moral than scientific at times, and that both are strong in the product, and in the outcomes. By knowing more about who we were once, and how we got to the present, we are less strangers in the strange land of integrative and functional medicine dominated by orthodox systems and their managers. We become instead of victimized observers of trends bigger than any one of us or our organizations, architects instead. This more active role arises from having learned from what we have endured, taking measure of what we have built and which, in turn, endures. We are enabled by understanding such detail as the Timeline presents. We are empowered by knowing more fully the best ways to create and sustain forward-looking structures; you know, the ones which have to be increasingly resilient to the tsunami of economic priority and guild behavior.
Whatever we keep on doing to keep naturopathic medicine robust and relevant, every plan along the way must be informed by what Socrates once called “these several actions with the whole soul”. Specifically, and if we know our history, the “whole soul” of naturopathic medicine cannot be as easily slammed by the big money makers of mainstream medicine, or, more pointedly, by the reductionist approach to medicine which conveniently forgets and forgives bloodletting and calomel in the same breath as it enables an opioid pandemic and startling iatrogenic data.
The at once highly complex and beautifully simple principles of naturopathic medicine show through in this Timeline and are celebrated, manifesting still over many, many years, helping keep our path forward and clear, certain and sustainable. These pages document in delicious detail how the three key elements in professional formation persist for naturopathic medicine: the establishing and accreditation of our educational preparation for practice; the recognition of our graduates by civil authority; and the codifying of our knowledge. We feel more secure about its derivation. We are stronger going forward knowing more about its historical and current relevance.
DAVID J. SCHLEICH, PhD
Emeritus President, NUNM
Portland, Oregon
