Osteopathy is a Consciousness

For many, Osteopathy is a means of being called doctor.
To others, Osteopathy is a technique or a modality.
To a few, Osteopathy is a consciousness.
It is a way of thinking and evaluating; where one can see A. T. Still and all of us as students of Osteopathy participating in its full expression.

            -- David D. Musgrave, DO

I was fortunate to have my friend and teacher, David Musgrave, send me this incredible piece of wisdom.

For a moment, give these four sentences serious consideration. “Osteopathy is a consciousness,” or a state of being awake and aware of what is going on around you. It is a category of increased sensitivity or awareness. “[Osteopathy] is a way of thinking and evaluating.” It is a pathway; it offers us a treatment philosophy rather than just a set of techniques. Remember William Sutherland’s insistence for us to “Think Osteopathy”?

As Osteopaths, we are unique and endowed with many gifts. Thankfully, we have a set of guiding principles and a legacy. In America, DO’s are also legally physicians and surgeons, like medical doctors. Many DO’s and MD’s have forgotten what it means to be a true physician. Perhaps David Musgrave should have said, “For many, Osteopathy is a means of just being called doctor” (i.e., a way to become a western or allopathic physician and surgeon); because a true physician, in the spiritual sense of the word, transcends the legal ability to prescribe medication or perform surgery.

Over the past 200 years the title of physician has referred to those who practice medicine as a profession. From an etymologic point of view, the word physician contains a concept with a much deeper meaning. While the word “doctor” in this context is defined as a medical professional, the word physician is derived from the Greek word, physike, which means knowledge of nature or being of nature. It is also derived from the Old French word, phiske (and later fisique) which was the art of healing. The suffix, -ian, means one skilled in.

Essentially, a physician is someone who has knowledge of Nature and is skilled in the art of healing. Many western allopathically trained physicians have lost this conscious knowledge and mindful respect for Nature. They have forgotten that “being of nature” is built into being a physician. They have become highly skilled medical engineers or specialized biotechnicians. If we allow for an etymologically expanded definition of physician, then anyone who has knowledge of Nature and is skilled in the art of healing is truly a physician. That means that many Osteopaths, who have trained outside of the American system, are true physicians.

A. T. Still was a student of Nature and he was in the truest sense a physician. Remember, he didn’t invent the healing art of Osteopathy he discovered those timeless principles of healing. Isaac Newton did not invent gravity and Hippocrates did not invent vis medicatrix naturae . . .

Who do you serve? Who is your master? Do you blindly follow the cultural edicts of objectivity, materialism, and reductionism or are you willing to have “unbounded faith,” as A. T. Still once said, in the absolute ability of Nature to do the work of healing? Are you ready to relinquish your ego based need to control and then trust, as Carl McConnell, DO once said that, “the very kernel of the healing art is simply what you or I can do to assist Nature”? Are you ready to become more that just a doctor?

Osteopathy is not and never has been a technique or a modality! Accumulated around the structure of the profession is a collection of techniques, but they are not Osteopathy. Osteopathy is a set of principles based upon Natural Law. These principles are most obviously applied via the vehicle of our hands but most significantly employed through our awareness. Osteopathy is first and foremost, as David Musgrave teaches, a consciousness.

If we as individual Osteopaths do as A. T. Still said and “follow [our] guide and fear no danger,” then this great healing art will continue to thrive and mature in spite of the efforts by many to make Osteopathy ordinary and conformist. Become one of the few.

Steve Paulus, DO

“Osteopathy is a Consciousness” was originally published in Inter Linea, The Journal of Osteopathic Philosophy, October 2002, Volume 4, Number 2, page 3.

© 2002 Inter Linea, The Journal of Osteopathic Philosophy