I won’t try to reproduce everything Peter said here in this limited space. Instead, I would recommend, if you’re interested in the details of the Lakota way of healing, that you pick up Peter’s book and peruse it carefully. But I will tell you one fundamental difference between the two traditions, from my limited understanding: in the West, we try to heal the body of the individual person and their specific disease. The Lakota medicine man does exactly the opposite: he tries to heal the spirit of the group. Western medicine focuses on a single body; and the Oglala Lakota tradition focuses on the community.

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I won’t try to reproduce everything Peter said here in this limited space. Instead, I would recommend, if you’re interested in the details of the Lakota way of healing, that you pick up Peter’s book and peruse it carefully. But I will tell you one fundamental difference between the two traditions, from my limited understanding: in the West, we try to heal the body of the individual person and their specific disease. The Lakota medicine man does exactly the opposite: he tries to heal the spirit of the group. Western medicine focuses on a single body; and the Oglala Lakota tradition focuses on the community.

Read more ...