The Magical Gap: Why Our Ego, Politics, and Dogma Block True Healing with Peter Galle (EP#232)

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The chat really dives into a deep philosophical and super-practical look at healing, all sparked by Peter Galle's firsthand experience with a pretty serious health hurdle—a herpetic cold sore infection in his eye.

He ran the full gamut, hitting it with conventional treatments like Valtrex alongside a ton of classic antivirals like Coptis (Huanglian) and Skullcap. But nothing was truly curative or stopping the progression of the ulcer. He was ready to give up and hit the emergency room for steroids when, as a last-ditch "recesses of my mind" shot, he took a large dose of St. John's wort internally. Peter describes a near-instant, profound cooling effect, and the infection began to resolve.

This miraculous, boundary-pushing moment opens up the main thesis of the conversation: the deep, messy intersection of medicine, politics, and personal philosophy.

Peter and you talk about the frustration of the "magical gap" that exists between highly institutionalized, textbook-based medicine (TCM, Naturopathic, or conventional) and the unique, individual healing path. You both stress that medicine is at its best when it is pragmatic, clear, and focused on the patient's best outcome—calculating the risk of a harsh intervention (like short-term steroids for joint destruction) against the long-term consequences.

The biggest hurdles aren't just the pathogens; they're the practitioners' internal politics and the ego-driven desire to make their own worldview or model right. The conversation broadens to the macro-level: how our non-integrated, moralizing medical system—and even humanity’s inappropriate relationship with the Earth—prevents us from truly seeing and honoring the unique path to healing for the suffering individual. Ultimately, the path forward is rooted in humility and a non-judgmental approach to meeting the patient where they are.

Peter & Mason discuss:

• St. John’s Wort “Magic”: High-dose St. John’s wort resolved a stubborn eye infection when other treatments failed.
• Pragmatism Over Dogma: Choose the most effective, lowest-risk treatment—even if it mixes approaches.
• Flaw in the Model: No medical system is complete; all are shaped by cultural limits.
• Healing “Gap”: Standard treatments don’t always work due to individual differences.
• Individual Uniqueness: Treat each patient as unique; personal response matters as much as studies.
• Internal Politics: Ego and bias can hinder effective treatment decisions.
• Humility & Integration: True healing requires humility and blending different medical approaches.

Resource guide

Guest Links
Peter's Website
Peter's Instagram

Mentioned In This Episode
Stephen Harrod Buhner Books

Related Podcasts
Qi Cycles And The Dao with Jost Sauer - Acupuncturist (EP#48)
Lifestyle Medicine with Acupuncturist Jost Sauer (EP#63)

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Check Out The Transcript Below:

Mason:

Let's roll. Right, into that, You can just, like, roll straight in, roll, yeah. And then we'll intro… I'll intro you after, yeah, so you got the eye infection.

Peter:

Yeah, so what I was… what I was trying to get at, which is kind of based on our… what we were previously talking about, is that ultimately medicine and the process of treating, illnesses and diseases is a process that always, has to do with, politics. Philosophy, your worldview about what you think is treatable and not treatable. And you… those are actual hurdles, they're real hurdles that… we all have to work through, and… and I was really… and even myself, having all these herbs, so, you know, we make all these herbs, we make all these individual plants, And I had a severe eye infection. It's, basically, what you can have is, you can have cold sores, you know, HSV1, herpetic cold sores, but you can have them anywhere, and I happen to have it in my eye. So, when you have that. and it's untreated, it can cause you to go… can theoretically cause you to go blind.

It's not very usual, but it's something that you have to pay attention to and watch, and typical… typically the treatment is to get, steroid drops. Sometimes they'll put you in antiviral, but it's kind of not always effective, and the reasons are because Eye tissue itself is a little bit more difficult to treat. It's got a little bit different of a vascularity. So, I was in my herb room and kind of debating, okay, it's been 2 days, it's getting worse, it hurts, there's a lot of pain, I'm light sensitive. and I'm trying all these different plants. I'm trying your classic antivirals, Coptis, or Huanglion, you know, is a very, very strong antiviral. Which is not commonly known, but it's very effective against, herpes, HSV1, HSV2 internally, even though it's very rich in berberine, which is not a systemic compound.

Something else inside of Coptis, which I have not found in the research on PubMed or other places, I have personally experienced to be very effective if you have a cold sore. I mean, exceptionally effective. But it wasn't doing anything, and I was taking a lot of it, and what I mean by anything is, literally, I just could feel my eye wasn't feeling like it was healing. And so I tried knotweed, you know, very good for eye tissue and hard-to-reach places. I tried, tree peony, which is mudan pea in Chinese medicine. you know, licorice, high doses of licorice, which is a very systemic antiviral, skullcap, you know, Huang Chen, which is an incredible antiviral, and very effective.

Mason:

Yeah, yeah.

Peter:

You know, and it was all kind of, like, keeping it at the same, maybe helping slightly. And I actually want to go back and modify my language a little bit. I wouldn't say it wasn't doing anything. It was somewhat helpful, but it was not curative and not stopping the condition, which I could feel internally, because I… you can very well feel if it's still in pain, if you're still light sensitive, so… part of medicine, which I think we'll talk about further, is setting your parameters on improvement, and what those are, and being very specific with it. And in this case, when you have symptoms, symptomatology, that's actually… even if it's just a personally felt symptom, that's usually… that's very helpful in treating disease. Because you can actually just chart it. Does it feel better? Does it physically feel better?

So, I was debating going to the doctor and going through the whole process. You know, they'll give you a steroid, like I said, sometimes an antiviral. Oh, and I was also taking a Clicovar, which is Valtrex. And all these things together, so if you take Valtrex along with Coptis genensis, or Huanglion, or Skullcap, it will, in my experience, improve the antiviral potency, and that's true with a lot of herbs. A lot of herbs are synergistic with pharmaceutical compounds. Pharmaceutical compounds and antivirals, antibacterials, sometimes they're inhibited because of resistance, and we can talk about that a little bit later. Often, herbs will improve the effectiveness and reduce or eliminate the resistance of the particular pathogen that you're trying to treat.

So, at this point, I had thrown basically the kitchen sink at it, and I was, not doing any better, and it was, like, 1PM, and it was a weekend, it was Sunday, and I thought, okay, tomorrow I'm gonna go to an emergency, I'll just make an appointment, local place, And I'll go get it taken care of, because I'm not able to treat it. And at the last second, I… took a large dose of St. John's wort. Because I remembered, it was, like, in the recesses of my mind, I was thinking, oh, you know, St. John's wort is a very potent antiviral. I've never heard it be used for herpetic infections. Internally. Topically, yes, but again, this is my eye. Oh, and… for those out there that are herbalists and maybe were thinking to use, a berberine or antiviral-based formula in the eye, I did that too. And it, what, to no effect. It was still, you know, or very little effect.

So I take this, pretty hefty dose of St. John's wort. And in about… 3 or 4 minutes, I can feel my eye is cooling off, literally, like, water is going inside the eye. And I… and I went, oh, wait. something's happening. You know, something's actually happening to my eye. And about 15 or 30 minutes, I was less light sensitive, and it was… the redness inside my eye was going down, and I was like, oh, this is treating it. This is actually… I can feel that it's actually treating it. And then I looked it up, and… In this particular paper, they have studied that, tested that, and it's 90% effective. against HSV-1. But what's really interesting, which I think is very important, because again, like, Coptis genensis, the Huang Lian, applied topically and taken internally for mouth cold sores, is like, if you start to feel it and you take it, it makes it not come out.

Like, that kind of effectiveness. For me, at least, and for others, for, you know, patients and things like that. But not touching the eye tissue. So something unique about St. John's wort, and they were testing it for, just in general effectiveness against the virus. But something specific about St. John's wort was able to penetrate the eye tissue. So, the reason why I say all this is because When you're approaching medicine, like, you have all these hurdles to get through. And you have to be pragmatic and practical, and you have to look at what's the best treatment, what's the best option, and then you also are dealing with time constraints with things that are acute, for example.

And as an herbalist, a practicing herbalist, and working with individual herbs, working with patients, you know, my onus to be able to treat something effectively with herbs or needles is different than maybe somebody else, because it professionally allows me to further my edge in terms of what's treatable or not treatable when I'm working in the clinic. However, I still have to go through those decision-making processes with treating and health, and I just find it very interesting, because, you know, all of these plants, and then I just get this feeling of, well, yeah, maybe I'll try that one, and then I learn something new, and that's a constant process where you know, I'm not even thinking of this plant, and come to find out it's highly effective, and interestingly, highly effective for tissue that's normally not so easy to treat.

Mason:

Yeah, what's the gap there? So, you know, maybe… maybe not people on this podcast, but a lot of people would be like, why wouldn't you just go to the hospital, bro, and use the steroids? And it's like, right, you know.

Peter:

Yes.

Mason:

You know, alright, well, there's… well, less inva… okay, it's like, well, one, you know, less invasive, less harsh on the body. philosophically, we're talking about, like, in this instance, it's a direct treatment, I think, when people talk about herbalism and, And acupuncture needles. They're like, oh, you know, you get to the root cause. In this instance, it wasn't… well, the root cause is very obvious, it was there, and it, like, you get, like, you know, like, oh, there's actually emerging from my kidneys, and I gotta get, you know, work on there, and it's like, okay, no, we were actually going for something direct, and then maybe think about the… the route, or why that was able to happen later. But…

Peter:

Yeah.

Mason:

philosophically. Okay, so you wanted… you want… that's the beauty of herbs, is there can be resolution, rather than going to a hospital, which is invasive and stressful, and not bad always, there is a catchment, which I think, politically, that's what we're trying to vouch for, is growing. But then there's this… and this is what I think is the frustration, because we've gone so macro and so institutionalized, and you know, kind of TCM textbook, naturopathic textbook, and, you know, about, like, this treatment is for that symptom, and this… and that's… and if that doesn't work, then it's like, well, sorry, now off you go, you go to the hospital, and you get invasive treatment, right? So you're… there's that gap. And it's been coming up a lot in disease, that there's this…

magical gap of, like, people who go into, like, you know, into immediate, like, remission, or people who, you know, the, you know, whether it's, like, you know, just some type of doctor is treat… you know, working with someone in treatment, and they're doing something on the side, and they're like, oh my gosh, you're doing so much better than everyone else, I can't believe it, I never get these types, don't tell me what it is. But there's, like, some type of… gap, and it's annoying for some people who are doing acupuncture and herbalism, and they do the correct things, and then it's not treating. And then they get disillusioned. There's that gap that you've kind of talked to there, that you're like… and I kind of… the recesses in my mind, and I thought about St. John's Ward, and I guess we've both… Steven Buhner and Heart Perception.

You know, kind of like, so, is that the gap, and how do we then grow that into society and into households?

Peter:

Yes, I think it's a very interesting and incredibly nuanced question. And this is what I'll say, I'm a student of medical history. I don't… I… there's a question about, effect on planet environment, which is a little bit denser, which I'll leave off the table for now. But in general…

Mason:

Planet environment, did you say?

Peter:

Yeah, planet and the environment when you're talking about medical treatment, which is a big, hot issue that's very little… the only person that I know that's talked about it is actually Steven Buhner. that I'm aware of, there's others… I mean, there's others. He cites research, so there's plenty of people talking about how I'm familiar with it. But let's just take off the table the immense environmental destruction of the, health industrial complex. And, you know, that's a whole nother thing. If every treatment was taken equally on a playing field. I actually endeavor, as a person that treats people in whatever fashion, to have as much flexibility as I can to make the following calculations. What is the best treatment That will result in the greatest, physical, spiritual revitalization and cure, if the cure is possible, for the person. With the least amount of risk.

And, and basically that, with the least amount of risk. So, for example, you know, I would… I would… I think surgery in general is an unbelievable modern, development. I mean, it is incredible, and the work of Lister is incredible, off of Pasteur, and the painstaking painstaking, detailed, micro-oriented progressions to that art are just incredible, and I love surgical history. And they should be lauded and applauded. The art itself… is… is what it is. It's like a direct… I wouldn't say objective, because all things are couched in the policies, the places in time that they come from, the worldviews. There is no… there's this thing in medicine which I push back against, which is that it's somehow objective because it uses a scientific method. And I know that's a wish and a goal. It's still coming out of a cultural zeitgeist.

It's still coming out of the Enlightenment, it's still coming out of overall reductionist theory. So it's gonna have pros and cons, period, and you cannot get out of that. Just like Chinese medicine, just like herbal medicine. The trick, I think, is to be extremely pragmatic, very clear, and have a very clear goal. What's the best thing for the patient? So, an example is, in my moment, like my case. I have all the tools at my hands. I'm willing to take that risk, because I know enough about the condition and the disease that I, myself, am willing to say, you know what? I'm gonna try this. The second thing is, and this is very important. This is sometimes untreatable even by Western standards. So, the steroidal compounds sometimes work, sometimes they don't.

And what happens is the ulcer just continues to burrow and burrow and burrow and burrow, and it goes very deep into the eye, and then it becomes non-healing. And that actually happened to me when I was 19. And what they had to do was actually apply a little piece of amniotic tissue, basically like a precursor to stem cell, I think, I don't know exactly, but it sat over my eye as almost like a prosthesis for, like, 3 days for that tissue to build back. Now, I went to a very talented, eye doctor in Los Angeles, and had a long conversation with him about this when this happened about 8 years ago. And his method was entirely different, but he specialized in corneas. This is all going to have a point to the general question. And so what he did was, he right away took a special device and scooped the tissue of the eye out that included the ulcer.

he benefited from very advanced knowledge, which actually is the eye is much more, robust than we think it is. He's like, everyone's kind of, like, kind of concerned about the eye, but you can do a lot to it, and actually, the thing to do is to scrape this tissue out so that it can just heal on its own. So I had those two experiences, and so… and it's a very good question, why wouldn't you just go do this? And I think the answer is… well, first of all, I was curious. I was just literally curious, like, is this possible? What's the edge? Is there an edge? And then when you establish an edge, I think for medicine, what it is, is you understand that it can always be pushed or retracted back. So, to take it to a patient who's, let's say, struggling with an autoimmune condition.

Well, autoimmune conditions, there's a lot of debate across the field, but it may be a part of a bacterial problem, a chronic viral problem, a mixture of both. A reactivity from the immunity that's attacking tissue, of course. Sometimes a dysregulation of the immune system itself that is targeting these parts of the tissue. And it's kind of a… the research is divided kind of through those three pathways. What you can do is you can set up healthy parameters for a person, and you can say, okay, what are the… what are the possibilities? Okay, so you're going to treat with, immune-suppressing drugs, that's the option, that's one option, and steroids. Well, let's just look at it. What's the long-term consequence of steroid use? It's quite high. You should not be on them for very long. And that's well known and well accepted, and we have the data for that.

Immunosuppressants are also challenging long-term, and so… what is the validity of using a method of treatment to avoid that? Well, the parameters are really simple, actually. You have autoimmune parameters inside of your blood work, and thankfully, autoimmune conditions often, not always, and, you know, there are some caveats to that, autoimmune conditions, you feel them. You feel like crap. You're in a lot of pain, you're having fevers, you're sick, you have chronic fatigue. So, if you apply an herbal therapy, you have joint destruction, you have rigidity of tissue, for example, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis is very straightforward, you can see it on the skin. So, and again, autoimmune conditions across the board, they're going to be nuanced, and each one is going to have their specifics.

But I think a very pragmatic approach to medicine is to identify what the specifics of destruction are, meaning what are the long-term consequences, and say, okay, where are we at now? What's the current picture? And, can we identify, through markers, okay. Can we make that better? Can we make that better? And let's try a protocol, and how long do we have? So, for example, if someone has severe swelling in their knuckles. You need to get them on steroids right away, because there's joint destruction. you could say, okay, I will give you high doses, let's say, of Red Sage, Cordyceps, let's do needling work, and we'll give it 5 days, 4 days, 3 days, and see, does the swelling dramatically and obviously improve? If it does not, you need to right away do the intervention that you need. And so what that means is, okay, you… what are you… what are you measuring there? Short-term use of steroid.

Okay, are there long-term effects to that? Not as many, if you're on them for long-term. Okay, so that's a risk you're willing to take, because… the consequence is long-term joint destruction, where you're damaging the synovium, let's say, and you're causing long-term problems that can set you up for joint rigidity and severe arthritic joints that make you… you can't move your hands, let's say, in 10 to 15, 20 years. Okay, that's very easy. Math right there. And so, there's that pragmatic side, where you're taking care of a patient, you're taking care of yourself, you're taking care of your loved one. And then there's also the side where you're, exploring that boundary to that edge. And I think that's actually always… there's… I used to have this thought, and I think there's this often… You know, belief. That conventional medicine is also very straightforward.

But actually, when you look at chronic disease, complex patients, I mean, they're throwing stuff at the wall, too. You know, it's very common to throw no-dose naltrexone at chronic inflammatory patients. You know, it's very common to just try to start to throw supplements. I mean, they're throwing, seeing what sticks.

Mason:

And they throw antibiotics at viral infections.

Peter:

For sure. And so, what it is, is medicine always is… is at its highest level when practiced by a pragmatic, clear, and, focused a group. Like, a group of people, the patient and the practitioner. And I think there's… that's what I mean about politics and philosophy and biases, is you really have to say, there's a lot of politics and philosophy, and that's just as big of a… hurdle disease process. It's part of the process, too.

Mason:

It's going through that, like, political landscape of… because we've got, like, a non-integrated system, and that, like… phrase our psyche and our decision-making process, depending on what we're politically aligned to as well, whether we reject modern medicine or we reject, you know, herbalism or whatever it is, right? Absolutely. And that all comes in the light of when you get practical and mathematical, and then you've got to deal with your own internal politics, right?

Peter:

100%. When you're especially starting out, and it still can happen, I'm very… I pay very close attention to when my… I want something to be true.

Mason:

That's interesting.

Peter:

It just, I mean, it's a red flag for me now, because I've had enough, like, times with it. And what I mean by that is. what… and this is where… and this is what I think is complex, is that there is a… there is a belief that because disease is individual. that you can't be… this is… this is really… this is, yeah, so let's… I'm gonna try to be very clear. Walking the path of the heart, like we're talking about with Steven. And this teacher that I work with in the jungle named Pio, you know… it's a very core, and it's all over Indigenous herbalism, it's in Chinese medicine, you know, there's very clear passages in it. It's in Buddhism, you know, their character for the mind is actually heart, you know, it's translated in modern texts as mind, but heart is the, is the, is the clarifying, piercing aspect of a path forward, knowing the right way, the correct way, etc. You know, anytime…

Yeah, anytime that you are… are… are working with inside of a framework, a model, and Steven talks a lot about this, you have to be clear on What your parameters are, and where you want your model to work because you're holding onto it, and wanting to believe it's the true expression of reality. And the person that is… that… that is… I don't want to say the… the person that gets the… The fallout from that is the patient.

Mason:

Unfortunately.

Peter:

So, if I… have, like, if I… I… so, for example, I've seen cases of severe rheumatoid arthritis in my own practice go into remission. And complete remission just from herbs and using needles, and not using immunosuppressants, not using steroids, and being in remission for many, many months, years, etc. I know that that's possible. However, individuals are individual. And the challenging part is, in medicine, in conventional medicine. We have a tendency to aggregate towards, quote-unquote objective effects of things. And randomized controlled trials, for example, to understand very specific compounds so that we can determine outcomes, which is very important. It's a very important skill to have, and I'm not denigrating it at all. The issue is that it also creates diseases that… disease names and signs and symptoms that are also kind of in a box.

And they have to be because the things that are treated have to have an outcome that's specific to the disease that's noted, and that moves right into pharmaceuticals. Individuals, though, can have highly… Individual expressions of disease. You can still be… observationally, Just as scientific, even though it's a sample size of 1. So what I mean by that is, you can very closely observe an individual's reaction. Even though it's completely individual, and take a very pragmatic approach. While also listening to the feelings in your heart, paying attention to them, listening to them and their response, their feelings in their heart, trying to maintain clarity, and then also paying attention to that ego. You know, it's just a part where, again, you want to believe your worldview.

And anytime that happens, you just really have to step back and take a step back and go, what's the best and clearest path for this person, for their best outcome? And if you do that, what I think you find is that no model is complete, because it's still just a model of the world. And that situations arise in front of you that are always unique. And you need to be… you need to honor that uniqueness. So even if I know it's possible that something can go into remission for another individual, no matter what I do, no matter what I… the way… any way I think about it.

You can identify triggers, problems, okay, they're not sleeping, they have a very stressful job, they have a really hard time giving up processed foods that are inflaming their gut in their specific condition, that's like a death, death, you know, nail, because their gut is triggering these inflammatory cascades, and they just won't stop. But, you have to look at that with humility, you know, and you have to say, you can verbalize that to the patient, but if they, you know, had a patient basically say, I can't stop. I can't, you know, I can't give it up. And, you know, I'd rather utilize the drugs to keep me going Then change those core things that are important. And you can… you can moralize that all you want. And I certainly have my own internal dialogue about that. Part of it's out of sadness. You know, part of it's out of, well, what could be?

But you really, I think, have to catch yourself and be like, okay. That's how I feel about it. But this person is choosing a different life path. And I don't know the ramifications of that. So what can I do? Okay, as a practitioner, I need to help them So how can I help them now? Okay, well, let's design… formulas for you that protect your kidneys and your liver, because these things damage those. Let's design formulas for you that help you sleep, even though you do shift work, you know? And so, let's design the let's… instead of stop not eating that food, can we think about not eating snacks? You know, like, basically, can we make… you're making little… choices. And at the end of the day, you know. you can even further switch and say, oh, is it an emotional issue that's keeping them in this pattern? And there's a whole world of that, you know? So, it's just really, like… It's…

yeah, it's just a lot, it's a very nuanced question, and…

Mason:

Oh, and I do want to keep on… I'm curious, I might…

Peter:

for years about it.

Mason:

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's why I wanted to chat again. I remember… I mean, if anyone wants to go to the prelude, I think 2 years ago, 3 years ago, we had a really cool, first chat when you were… when you were on the pod, so you can get more of this. I… my mind went to a couple of places. I think I might land somewhere that, you know, might even take us to that ecological, destruction and poor, Or, say, inappropriate. relation with the Earth.

Peter:

Yeah.

Mason:

When you were talking about those, you know, the varying… dispersed… institutions, or maybe not even an institution, just, like, an individual way of seeing healing that might not, you know, might feel really personal. I was kind of thinking about diabetes, like, over the years, how I really empathize with people who… I won't actually mention the names of the people, there's no point, but, like. who are, like, had seen miraculous things with, like, a no-sugar raw food kind of approach, and people would go to their… their healing center, and they'd use the examples of these miraculous healings of diabetes, and of course, I'd know the people Stories of the people that got lost and washed away from that, and… with diabetes, I've also heard of the carnivores. Do, you know, the people who have miraculously, you know, you know, healed, or, water fasting folks, and… and then you hear this…

and then likewise, there's kind of more of the repeat people, who they use… they under… they're like, we need to use sugar so the metabolism can heal in the first place, and then treat with… and I'm like. And I look around, and it makes me want… it's made me want to cry for a lot of years, when people will come to me and be like, I've heard that this… protocol heals this and that, and I'm like. And the… it's so hard when you're… your group of, you know, your belief system, or your herbal world, or your diet approach, or your modern medicine approach, treating macro of society, and just going, just live with the insulin, and do you understand how miraculous it is, the fact that we have drugs that can treat you and stop you degenerating, stop mucking around, you know, and… and then so each in these… in these groups, as you've talked to about, you know, this is how I see the world, and…

but it's not individual, you know, it's not kind of layered, or, you know, there might be pockets of society that think this way, and I'm going to be able to empathize with those and meet them there, and then down to… individual, Where there's that… that… That thing that we have, which is excessive in the way of, like, what you'd say were, like, you know, objectively true goals of society is having this, you know, just say, like, a macro, like, loving approach, you know, general evolution of the… individual, healing, law, you know, affinity for connection, and, you know, whatever. You know, there's macro things, and we know what stands in the way of that is us Just solely gathering evidence and things to make us right and make others wrong, even when it's not sinister, most of the time. And because we still fa… we look at the evidence out there, and our story… this is just, like, the…

basically the first thing I've ever learned in all, like, personal development courses, and then I… and all philosophy is just, you know, all… these traditions are the same. It's just like, how do you go through that haze of your story and your evidence gathering and being right, so right and hanging on to the rightness, which seems life and death? And then being able to actually meet that individual, objective, what's actually happening in front of you, and then starting to trust and work as a society, or just work with yourself, with the individual. And that's when I'm maybe like, what's in the way of that? And as you were talking, I was thinking of that, I was like, I think that kind of comes to that ecological… that relationship with the environment, of where is that?

We've got so much left hemisphere understanding at this point of, you know, the meridians, classical Chinese medicine, TCM, herbalism, compounds, modern medicine, it's magical. And then what… at what point do we actually learn to weave in between them and get these sensings of what that individual path is for the person so that absolutely magical healing can occur in whatever initiation process they need to go through. As you said, whether they won't follow the bloody thing we… there's evidence, you idiot! Right here, if you just follow these steps, and you won't. And so, you know, the institution rejects them, they can't do anything for you, rather than being like. Yeah, that's… I… we feel you. We're gonna… I can't get to the bottom of this, but we're gonna get to the bottom of it together, and then perhaps integration occurs.

Because that skill comes from, a relationship with the planet, a human… you know, humanity on a macro, having, an abs… You know, maybe not Disney-fied kind of relationship with the Earth, where we don't use the resources at all, but actual, you know, reverence for the Earth, and… stewardship of the earth and, you know, appropriate relation. Is that in the way of us getting to that point where we can actually work on that individualistic, integrated level? I wonder what you think is that next step that helped, because it's so… so difficult at the moment. There's so many people suffering in such… And then I can… and then you… they… they have to watch other people have these sudden healings all around them, and they go chasing, and then sometimes that takes them off their path. Sometimes it is their path that they need to go and chase at and find their, you know, their… their elixir.

Yeah, I wonder what you… how you feel about that.

Peter:

It's a wonderful question, and it's a very dense and nuanced question, like I said before. This is a question about humanity and how we intersect with the bubbling spring of the earth that we come up with. It's exactly right. I would say that… Ultimately… The… there's a couple of things. Humility, I believe, is at the root of a potential path forward, because we do have to be humble to the fact that we get sick, have disease, and die. And I think that's very challenging. And I think that we have sometimes, at least my experience, a reaction to death and disease, and I think partly it's from… The advent of antibiotics. And the sure belief In the 50s, 60s, and 70s. 40s, really, to 60s, and Steven Buhner writes about this, that we had cured disease. that modern medicine and the miracle of conventional medicine and science had cured infectious disease, basically.

And there were pronouncements that, hey, like, by the year 2000, like, no one will die on Earth. of infectious disease. It'll be gone. So it'll only be senescence or old age issues, you know, like a natural process. I believe there's moralizing on how to heal. a lot of moralizing on what's preferred. For example, there's cuts, and there's many ways of this, but it cuts To the way of, oh, you're… you know, you're not an intelligent person if you don't use conventional medicine. Like, what are you thinking? You know, you're not scientific. Which is, of course, grossly inaccurate. But that's a very common belief. These types of thoughts also are in, medicine that's not conventional. If you choose that, it's a failure. Well, you could have healed this way. Oh, well, you shouldn't be taking drugs. You shouldn't be on pharmaceuticals. And I think what it gets back to is, and it's a much…

this is a very nuanced question, because there's a macro, like you're saying, a macro level of our influence on the planet. And that's an important thing to take into account, and I think there's multiple, possibilities to this, future. One of them is, yes, we have to accept we cannot walk upon the earth without, stepping in mud. Meaning, just by being alive, we are catabolizing resources, just by being alive. There is nothing that we can do. Every organism on this planet is consuming, and giving back. It is a cycle. And there is nothing that we can do about that. Our bodies, if we don't, you know, entomb them, they also would feed the earth. I mean, there's this great giving and receiving cycle. And I think it's very difficult to accept that. It may be logically, but internally. Buddhism has a lot of meditations for this.

One of them is meditating on the different states of death in the body. To become realistic to that. The second thing is, and it's attached to that, is I do think that we have to think about our impact in terms of medicine. To your… and I'll get to the diabetes part, which is part of that line walking, edge-walking about disease and illness and individuality. But before I get to that, we really would have to take a complete review of how we make pharmaceuticals, what goes into them. What they're made of in terms of how they get into our environment. The extreme waste of the, medical complex? The fact that it's one of the biggest polluters in the world, so it's actively damaging our environment. So we have to grow up a little bit as a species, a lot of it, to recognize our impact. And what I think the vision of the future would be…

A completely unified group effort to acknowledge the various possibilities of healing and the difficulties of measuring them. In terms of a randomized controlled trial. So what that would mean is, for example, the Coptis example, I have… I… there may be something out there, please look, but… for listeners and anyone, but I am not aware of the… the antiviral discussion around… there are some… I think there's a couple papers on COPTIS. I personally experience it, like I said, but it's so nuanced. For me, it was gastrointestinal epithelial lining related, effective against herpes. So it was very specific and local to me. So that might also mean that it's helpful on application for genital herpes, because that's the same type of tissue. However, it may be different for the eye, and maybe that's where St. John's wort. It's a very individual nuanced. What that would mean is, is that…

across the board, we would say, okay, we know it's helpful to improve circulation with a variety of means. There may be multiple different needling techniques, let's say, from Chinese medicine. We know there are Hundreds of thousands and millions of plant compounds. It's exhaustive. So we're going to pool indigenous resources, and then this gets into the question of monetary and appropriation, which we can talk about later, but let's just say it's all being taken care of in an appropriate way, with reciprocity. This means… okay, so we see all those possibilities. Now we're going to look at all the diseases that we treat. and have treatments for. Now we're going to look at the toxicity of those pharmaceuticals, what they are.

And we're going to identify how many of those conditions that we can replace in a sustainable way that matches compounds that we know in nature, based on literal land mass, on biomass, where they can grow, etc. I mean, this has to all be done, extraction methods, etc, so that we can reliably replace, if possible. All of the, and as many as we can, implements that we have. with better effect, and we have to redefine what effect means. Meaning, okay, this compound keeps the disease in check, but also doesn't make your kidneys sick so that you need another pharmaceutical 10 years from now. And then honestly, collectively, as a humanity, we have to come together And… Fully reckon with. our need… To survive at the expense Of other environments, species, and each other. We really have to reckon with, okay, how… what is my footprint?

And I think, ultimately, if we were able to drastically change. The amount of… corporate privatization of resources. To basically completely reformat how we use our natural spaces. completely reformat how we look at goods and sales and services. I mean, this… the issue with health, of course, is it's a web. It's an entire web that includes the entire planet.

Mason:

And it's connected, even though it seems so disconnected at the moment.

Peter:

Exactly. It's completely connected. You pull one thread, and it's all… the sweater unravels. You cannot address overall chronic disease, health, acute disease, without addressing the level of pollution and destruction that the medical complex does. I mean, you can't. And it's… it's overwhelming, but I guess to… to try to get to some as one person, as an individual, but try to get to some forward path in what you're saying. what I… and what's the way forward in having this kind of unified, where we drop the hurdles? Well, part of the reason people hold hurdles is because they want to do good, and they want to validate a certain method, because they know it works for some people. Well, right in the moment when that happens, there's a monetary impetus. You can make money.

So if you have a method that works, you can set up a treatment center, you can sell online courses, you can do all these things. Well, that's because money, as a root, is an issue. And it's… what I mean by an issue is it… it can fund thinking. So, like, we're getting now into, like, no fiat currency. I mean, it's like, you know… but really what it would be is, I have a model, like, if we're gonna boil it down to very simplistic, I have a model. The model is that this is what I'm thinking about the certain system. This is why it's important to think that. This is what I've noticed, anecdotally, with a certain amount of patients, a certain amount of people. I'm not tied to the model. Here's the resources that it requires to use and to treat it. Here's what we've seen is helpful. It may be helpful for a lot of people that it's valid enough to adopt for yourself.

Take note, when you adopt it, here's the parameters that you should see change. If they don't change, then maybe this isn't working for you. I don't know why it's not working for you. I thought it had to do with, you know, stopping an autoimmune reaction to, you know, pancreatic cells. Maybe my model's not correct about that. Maybe it is, but for you, your autoimmunity is structured in a different way.

Mason:

Yeah, we feel like there's 3 kind of ways that you can go now. I'm not sure which one it is you, but our observation is you go here, here, or here now.

Peter:

And I think the transparency about that, so it's, like, very individual and very macro all at once. You know?

Mason:

That is a good analogy, man. The web is really nice. rather than integration, because integration, even though I think it's the exact same thing and people feel the same thing, integrated and integrative is, you know, different than those, you know, but, like, a web is like, oh, snap. symbiosis, full connection, no matter what. No matter what, you don't have a choice. This isn't like, well, we're not connected and we're making ourselves connected. It's like, no, no, no. You are fully connected anyway, we're just, like, bringing that web to life.

Peter:

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's where the responsibility… Comes from… Fully realizing interdependence, that we're fully interconnected into everything that's on this planet. And that's obviously a Buddhist, you know, Buddhist concept, but it's very true. Like, one of the things Thich Nhat Hanh says is that I believe it's the Diamond Sutra, is the oldest ecological text, you know, because it talks about this web of interrelationships that were connected by this incredible web. And I think it really is… it's like, what I want to say is, So, my skills and specialty, are… there's many different specialties I have in my practice, but one of them is a very high degree of needling technique. So I've done work with cadavers, we talked about that before, dissecting, bodies.

And, and in a very specific way with, Gil Headley out in Colorado in the United States, where you go from the layer, from the skin all the way down to the bones. And incredibly informative, to research a lot of anatomical texts, I work a lot of advanced kneeling techniques on my own body. And then, you know, I work with that. So as a result, I work on a lot of pain, pre-surgical pain and post-surgical pain, either trying to help someone not have surgery if they don't need it, of course I'm not averse to it, but also helping people who've had surgery who are still in pain, or still having mobility issues, or it hasn't been treated, or it's half better, but not totally better, etc. And so I had a patient recently where I was treating. And they happen to be on statins, which, statins are related to, myopathy or muscle dysfunction, and can cause chronic pain.

That is one of the known effects of the drug. And it's kinda… there's a lot of… in the literature about how long that lasts, what it can do, the nature of the destruction. Exhaustion is one of them, aches and pains, and it's also an anecdotal, response. Like, if you look on reviews of medicine, people will talk about this. You can dismiss it if you want, but as a practitioner. My personal view is I try to take seriously everything that a patient brings to me. Because it could be the key, and you may dismiss it, because, well, we don't know that. Well, it doesn't really matter. It's happening for them, so we need to address it, and we've got to figure out the reason for that.

Mason:

what do you call that skill? Just in case, if that's feeling general for any practitioners out there? Like, because how do you just not stay benignly trying to be interested in everything that's said, but, like, what's the skill of hunting for the… you know, what's… Yeah, yeah.

Peter:

You know, I really like the work, so, I like the work of Arnold Mendel. He talks a lot about the dream body, and that all that arises in a clinical encounter is actually a manifestation of all the world's events interconnected, and the dream life and the body of the practitioner and the patient. And he has very interesting books, I highly recommend them. And I don't agree with his overall view of how a clinical encounter should go, where… and what I mean, this is… this is, like, not agreeing with a river, so the way I'm gonna say it, it sounds a little strange. Because, like, what he says is there's a flow, there's a Tao, and there's nothing you can do. About that flow. Wu Wei. And a… you can't stand in front of that. All you can do is manage and work with that. So if someone is meant to die, and that's part of the process, and they come to you. then that's part of the process.

If they're meant to live, they're meant to live. He doesn't… he's giving up control. And I actually, on a spiritual and philosophical level. Agree with that. However… I also recognize my own… for whatever reason, the Earth decided to emerge these certain types of… I, like, look at them as, like… and it's a part of a community, I'm not taking individual responsibility for them, but wolf-like gifts that I possess, personally, and there are other people that can possess them. Meaning, I'm very good at going very far, like, miles and miles and miles, in search of something. You know, and I will search and search and search and look and look and look. And that searching comes as a need that's… that's instigated by what a patient presents. So, I have to honor the fact that I have a huge arsenal of healers behind my back, like, tens of thousands of medicines. I've only worked with 200.

Like, I mean, there's tens of… I mean, it's mind-blowing how much medicine is out there. I can only work at my pace and speed. Anyway, so the point of that is… the way I work, is… I try to consider… everything that they're saying is important. Which, now, as a response to practitioners, say, well, you get cognitive fatigue. And I agree. That's a possibility, it's a real thing. Cognitive… clinical fatigue is something they write about in many clinical textbooks of clinical care. What I try to do is focus on my breath, So breathing in and out. I try to listen very closely. I try to listen for when I'm hearing in my heart, in my field. That there's… dissonance. What I mean by that is. And this may be… we'll talk about this a little bit further with the work of Pio Vuchatec, which is the Peruvian medicine man that I work with.

But there's an obstructing energy inside of a clinical encounter, and then there is a life-giving or vital energy. They're two different ones. And I feel like you can feel them. This is what I mean by bridging the gap in the future, when we were talking about how does all the medicine of the world come together. Part of it is understanding energy is very important to be reading and feeling, and also understanding you can read a textbook. Like, you don't have to… they don't have to be separated. So, when a person's bringing up something, you can feel an energy of importance to it. Where it has a poignancy, it's like a ripple in the fabric. And it's a very important thing, where they're like, you know, it's… and it can be as simple as, you know, it's really… no, the pain is actually not any time other than when I try to stand or lift my leg to get in the car.

Well, a lot of PTs may recognize that as a psoas dysfunction. And that's just very simple, and my model now is reduced from a cosmic, worldly being who, like, has a dream body and, you know, is flowing through the universe with countless, potentially, lives, if that's true, if that model's true, and, you know, is, like, part of this celestial, like, cosmic dance, to, I'm going to… Take a needle, with skill, and I'm going to… prepare their body in a certain way, physically touching them, and I'm going to contact that tissue that I've identified, that I know from countless encounters, and from anatomical research, and I'm going to needle that specific tissue. And I'm feeling in my body that that's a way forward and path for them. And I'm putting all the experience I've had, everything I've read, everything that's coming to the counter, and then I'm making a decision. If they're…

if they're speaking, and the information is, like, flat and gray, or it's not really resonating, and it's hard to listen to, or it's like you are… It's… there's confusion inside of it. Often, and they're speaking for a long time, there are all these different nuances, you have to begin to continue your breath, but also to identify each area they're trying to open with their being. So if they suddenly start talking about their emotions, well, you better believe that The emotions are part of the thing that wants to be addressed. So, if they start to mention the emotions, but they have back pain. Yeah, yeah, that's part of it. Even if you ultimately decide to now just treat the psoas. You have to cognitively be aware that, well, the emotions are here, they're a part of it. That may or may not mean that they will cry or have an emotional thing during the session.

You just have to know that their being is trying to bring up something. And the final thing I'll say about the obstructive energy… Is the obstructive energy is where a narrative becomes either unnecessarily confusing, combative, like there's argument… it turns argumentative, which you have to be very delicate around. You need to be very clear and state your… state what you believe, but with enough softness that you're not cornering them. It's about the models. You know, so if you really are holding onto your model, and like, hey, you know, you're exhausted and tired, and in Chinese medicine, that's a spleen or pancreas deficiency, and I'm telling you that, and you're eating cold foods, and that's causing the problem. If there's an energy which is, I'm going to supplant your worldview, because you're not listening to me, and I'm going to tell you what the model is.

It can create adversarial responses. But you have to gauge that with your senses. You have to be… you know, sometimes it's very important to look someone straight in the eye and tell them what you think. And so, yeah, just as to sum it up, for practitioners out there wondering, how do you know the difference, well, it's about the feeling of the information as it's coming in, and About the level of clarity that it brings to a path forward. And if it brings very… hey, wait, wait, wait, wait. What'd you say about that thing that you got really upset with your dad, and then you started having burning urination? Wait, let's stick… go back, go back. Tell me a little bit more about that. And all of a sudden, this little flower opens up, and it kind of leads you to different paths.

So it's a skill that you gain over time, and you will miss things, and you'll, you know, you'll drop things, you'll get embroiled in all this, like, side thing. Each one has its own energy, though. And you can learn to feel it when it's arising. And you can learn to feel it when you're going down a path that's completely, like, a dead end. It has a certain feeling, it's like… It's like you're shouting at someone who's not listening to what you're saying, and it's like the information isn't going in.

Mason:

Hmm. Oh, it's so… it's so interesting. I've been thinking about Wu Wei a lot lately, and the misinterpretation. I meet a lot of Taoists, who I… who either feel like have nailed it, and they've, you know, interpreted that in a way that's, like, hyper-practical, and then so many people using it as a way to stay disengaged. With the planet, which is… and it's difficult, you know, and that's why I think it's, you know, it's often dangerous to identify your philosophy, say, if it's a… I'm a Taoist, and I just follow Wu Wei, and we've got this consensus that it's just like, whoop, hands up, I'm just gonna let it… whatever. I think a lot about, Have you read Jitterbug Perfume? I'll…

Peter:

Okay, I have this… I have to say this. One of my very best friends, who also, is a Chinese medicine practitioner in Brisbane, Australia, Glenn Bowman, he, has told me to read that book, and, I need to read it, because…

Mason:

I won't use this example there, because it's a good… it's got a good part of…

Peter:

That's fine, you can spoil it, it's fine.

Mason:

Well, there's just an inflection moment where he's, like, talking to someone pretty wise, and he's like, I gotta go back. And it's like. you can very much see that that's not your path. Like, I… it's out of your control. I know it doesn't seem like it right now, but that is… that's a… that's a juggernaut that's moved. And your path is over here. And now you've just got to deal with all those feelings that you're out of control in this instance, and However, your skill, which is, like, you mentioned skill, your constitution, and who you innately are. your personality has already pointed you in this direction, and now you just need to have the discipline to stay in your path, and then go and control the things that you can control. And I feel like WuWei is, like, so practical in that sense.

Like, as a practitioner, you can't just be like, well, it's all predetermined and written in the stars. I find that pretty defeatist, and I think that's just so obviously not the case, even though I think the pattern's rolling in nature, and we can see, oh yeah, you can kind of see where this is going based on the evidence, and there's, like, outcomes that are, like, written in the stars. And at the same time, beyond those patterns rolling out is this blank… canvas, that if we all engage, we can, like, have a lot of effect in that, and Wu Wei is just about, like. well, obviously, we were talking about boundaries…

no, not boundaries, not that word, but it's a baggage word, but, you know, it's like, you can control this, I know I can't control this, and you kind of explicitly state, I know based on my skill level, and I've gone and followed who I am, and my constitution, and what I'm interested in, and what I enjoy, and what I'm good at. which is wu-wei, you go along with those things, you don't go against the grain of who you are, and you develop the skill in anything. And then you just, hey, I know I can do this, and I know I can't do that, and you get really explicit in that boundary. And then at that point, you don't go against the grain, because you're excessively spleeny and empathetic to the extent where you're gonna damage that person and give them false hope, or…

you're resigned, and you won't actually engage and be like, look, don't over-promise anything, just use your gift and your beauty and your skill, and just go for it. Believe in yourself. Wu Wei, you know, they know you're not promising them complete healing or whatever it is in the world, but go, give it a good whack, and that's… and that's Wu Wei as well. It's why we get so unhappy when we're not… you know, within momentum, and we're not allowing that internal chief transformation between young to occur within us. Anyway, I think that's cool. I think that's really, you know, like, just that wu-wei is something I think a lot of people could do to, to revisit what that means, and it doesn't mean apathy.

Peter:

Absolutely. Well, I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Your act, like, for example, if, like, a child is about to fall in a well, you're gonna, I mean, you're gonna grab it.

Mason:

You're gonna do everything you can do. That's funny. Yeah, that's such a good example.

Peter:

to… to stop… based on good intent, like, good… and what I mean by good, and people get locked into this, it's just very simple, it's what's helpful directly and pragmatic. What is helpful directly and pragmatic? And it's, okay, I'm gonna help this person right now. I'm gonna do everything I can do to help this person. And… and to say… and what I'll say is, before… I forgot to tie this up, but it lands now with the patient that had this reoccurring myopathy. Any treatment that I did was ineffective. And what I said was, I don't know, but what I'm saying is, is when tissues don't heal. then I immediately am suspicious of something keeping them from healing. And in this case, there is a lot of evidence about statins creating muscle fiber dysfunction. You can…

and so the idea would be to come off with your doctor, because that's a concern, because they also had a concern of cardiovascular issues. So, it's not… there's no light quality, and some cardiologists have come… have said, well, you might have aches and pains, but it's lowering your risk of, you know, of a cardiovascular event. And a further issue which complicates that was that it's calcium deposits inside of the arteries, not plaques inside of their arteries, it's inside of the actual walls of the arteries themselves. And I said, look, there's a couple possibilities here. You stay on the statin at a certain dose. We work with herbs. It's highly, as it is highly speculative and theoret, I don't know.

there seems to be some evidence that some compounds, aconite, futsa being one of them, can potentially, in some animal models, degrade calcium inside of the arteries, and even disrupt that deposition process. I said, but we're going out on a limb. And so, my offer here to you is you are on these medicines for 6 months, and you retest the calcium to look at your score. At the same time, if that is able to be changed at all, then you would begin to taper off the statins while, you know, continuing on the herbs, etc. I mean, it's a big, huge plan, a huge choice. Their choice was to not continue treatment. And I fully have to reckon and be aware of two things. One, that I may have been exactly correct, it was the statin. And if they had stayed off the statin, at the risk of a higher cardiovascular event. in 6 months, and not even needled them, their muscle would have healed.

I could have been completely correct. I could have been completely wrong, too. That's, I think, really, like, just to get back to this is, in part of the wu-wei aspect of it, or the… it's also the middle path in Buddhism, which is a little bit different, but what it's basically saying is you don't hold tightly to anything. A piece of information is only… It's one rung on the ladder, you're climbing up. So if you just stay at one rung, you're still stuck. Meaning that you can bring all your gifts to bear on a situation. The outcome, just like Arnie Mendel says, it could still be death. But how do you preserve your psychology, your awareness, your breath, your heart? And be accepting that what you do is everything you could do.

While also being clear to the person, the patient, of what you're doing, why you're doing it, what you're looking for, to know that what you're doing is having an effect. And then letting the rest go. Yeah, I think that's… after… I feel like in the last 2 to 3 years, I finally have And I'm sure there are other permutations to this, but I've had patients die. I've had patients become very sick. I've had patients need to use any type of intervention possible. I've had patients get better, get healthy, survive. And from all those experiences. And having difficult times. Thinking about, you know, doing everything I can do for someone, and then… Even… even trying to coach them in a certain way, etc, and then eventually they still die. And trying to… Be honest to that fact.

I think it's just the process is, complex, large, but ultimately, if you can show up earnestly and understand there is a bigger thing at play, but that doesn't mean your role isn't to show up dramatically. Like, I think, and it's just that fine dance, it's like, You know, yeah, it's just a fine dance.

Mason:

Yeah, I mean, to bring… to bring us into land, that, you know, that vision, that macro you mentioned, like, you know, that, you know, we're engaged with that web, we're aware that, like, alright, if we choose to go full pharmaceutical, we look at the degradation of the Earth. It's actually… Like, not sustainable, not from just, like, a… you know. hippie, you've got a choice to be a smidge better, it's like, no, it's gonna… it's gonna be absolute destruction if we continue to tip over in that scale. Likewise, there's certain people who are so far gone, we need to make sure that we have, like, intervention available to them, so let's look at how much copsis can we grow in a way that it's actually still effective, and that doesn't just become the same thing that degrades, you know? Okay, we'll lay multiple into… all of that cool, that webbing. Then we go, why, what's the goal?

And we look at, you know, like, alright. everyone's happy and lovey, and, you know, that's nice. That vision often is the destruction for people who are, like, in our… in our community, because they hang so far to the… the Never Never Land of what is a very real vision for the goal of humanity long-term, and then when you come back into the reality of civilization as it is, although it's still beautiful, I think that… And then you look… you look at what's just in front of you right now, so when… When you're looking at patients and folks, because then… the goal is individual as well. So with some people, the goal remains to remain spiritually connected, and therefore drugs are gonna shut off certain psychological and comprehension capacities, and so it's, like, something they're not able… like, not able to…

to cop, that they do go into that level of medical dependence, and I guess for other people, it's just like, I just need to stay alive. and have my wits about me somewhat, I don't care, I can't risk that. That's an interesting, like, you know, I was just been thinking about how that final one, like. Determining what you can hold in terms of a macro intent of the web and the goal of humanity. loosely goal word, you know, the intent of the unfolding of a pattern within Harmony, say, and then looking at the individual in front of you and accepting their intent, and then allowing that treatment direction to be guided by that. That must be a really fascinating thing to go through.

Peter:

Yeah, it is. It's… Humbling. Definitely. That's the experience. Yeah. It's humbling because, at the end of the day, what it's asked me to do is let go of the way I think things should be. but also speak up for the things that I think could be. It's like, you have to hold both. Because, oh, and I guess this really does tie very well back to the philosophy. And the politicizing is I had… A lot of times… there's a subset of patients that want to figure out if it works or not. Like, figure out if it's working for them. And… and I… and what I… I find that very interesting. Because that's also a strange thing. And what I mean by that is, because you might think, well, of course, somebody wants to know if it's working for them. Like, if it works, but this is what I mean, they want a general understanding. Well, I don't really know if acupuncture works. I don't really know if herbs work.

And it's… and what I said recently, I said, listen. It's very simple. You are… you are not the head of the FDA. Like, you are not… you are not the head of a huge scientific, evidence-based program. You don't have to make that decision, actually. As an individual, you do not have to make the decision whether or not there is a tome that's written that's validating the medicines of the earth. You don't have to. Actually, the only thing that you need to do here is to see if you're getting better.

Mason:

That's cool.

Peter:

That's it. It does not matter, you can let everyone argue. The goal here, and I'll tell you, it's really simple. I'm gonna treat you. And either you're gonna see, if you feel better, in a very direct way. I'm laughing because of the simplicity, not at them, because I know, by the way, I fought this dragon for many years. It's… it's… It's strange. There's no absolutes. It's very important to look at something and research it. I'm all for that. But… You have to let that go for the individual. So for this particular person, they had severe neuropathy because of a huge degeneration in their, their spine. They're very, very, aged, in their 90th decade. And I said it's very simple. You're either gonna have more feeling in your hands after we work. And you're gonna be able to squeeze better, or you're not. It's… so let them…

let the treatment show you, and we don't have to worry about if it's working or not, because you will know, like, as a general. And that was very simple. And so we treated, and yes, they were able to squeeze better, you know, they were having less neuropathy. And so… and then coming back in, but it was still a process of… they were like, well, you know, I don't… it's definitely better. And they even said again, they're like, but, you know, I know they said something that their doctor had said, because often… it can depend, you can get different things in the United States.

Mason:

And I said, again.

Peter:

It's okay, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. You don't have to worry about that. The only thing that I want you to focus on is, is it feeling better? And there's some very clear things here. Are you able to button your shirt better? Yes? We can watch you do it. Okay, great. Do you have less tingling? Yes, can you feel that? Trust yourself. Because that's the other thing people will say, well, I don't know if it's placebo. And my response to that is. There will… there is… you cannot randomize control trial this needling technique. It's individual to your tissue. It's going through a specific path, a specific adhesion. We're releasing a specific thing, a specific time, specific place, with your specific nutrition, your specific circadian rhythm. It's okay. You can let go of the placebo idea, too. Are you having real functional changes to your condition?

That's all we need to worry about. Let all the other stuff go. But it does really… it really becomes this, like… yeah, it becomes an individual quest. And I think, ultimately, as a… as a… as a practitioner, as a patient, you can let that go. You really can. Just like, that doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is you. you feeling better, getting better, your blood work's showing. And I'm not just saying, like, you can argue the other way, well, it's just they're… it's… how do they know if they're feeling… that's fine, let it go. Do… do a test where you hold different weights. Have them, be able to, you know, do different exercise tests, look at their blood work, look at their blood values. I don't… it doesn't… be as specific as you want. Are they getting better? Okay, that's fine. That's all I care about.

Mason:

Beautiful. Yeah, that's empowering. And real. It's, like, literal.

Peter:

And that actually ties back to the final thing about who is sacrificed on the altar of models is the person who needs help. Like, that's who… who gets it. If somebody's like, well, we have this model, and we're gonna do it. And it's like, well, that treatment could kill that person. Well, that's what we do. Well, why don't we investigate another way that's… You know, there is a patient in the hospital, and… They had a severe systemic fungal infection, and they had to be put on an antibiotic that immediately gave them acute kidney injury. And I was in my herb room, the person had called me to come to the hospital to give them an herbal tincture to help. And, And I was like, Wuja Pi, Elethro. It just, like, came, like, that was a very, like, sometimes the plants will come in very strongly and be like, you need to use me now for this person.

Other times, it's me just, like, you know, whatever. But sometimes it's very, like, hey, this will help. And then I looked it up, so I always double-check and look, and I found one paper that Yulithro, very specifically, Canthopanix is another name, stops the cascade, and there's other plants to do this, cordyceps as well, and that's in the Journal of Nephrology as well, the cordyceps, the schisandra, That paper, too, I can send you. But… but very specifically, Elethro stops the chemical inflammatory cascade that destroys the glomeruli of the kidney, the little net, due to acute kidney injury from a pharmaceutical. So… Something like that. Some of the paper was around that… that ballpark. I went. Perfect. So I pour this formula, I get over there, it's like almost midnight. And the supervising doctor, which I knew… this is such a huge hurdle.

And I immediately became scared, which I wish I had more courage in that moment. And I was working with a relative of the patient's, and the supervising doctor actually allowed which was… which was a miracle. Allowed the medicine to be used. But by the morning. The… the next doctor that was on the shift rejected it. Because they were concerned, which I understand this is what this, this, pros or cons, because they were afraid, even though it was high alcohol percentage, you know, over 60%, which would kill almost all molds and bacterias, it's true over a long period of time. Sometimes molds can live around that environment, although Very unlikely that they would… introducing that into the feeding tube would be a potential for causing mold. More, more infection. Do I think that that was an intelligent decision? Absolutely not.

The reason is because alcohol, like I said, but you also have to look at litigation. So, anyway, that case continued to decline. Unfortunately, they never were able to use those, so we'll never know. And I don't know what would happen. But at high doses, what might have been able to occur was that the kidney might have been recovered enough, so they stopped having to use diuretics. Because diuretics also hurt the kidney when there's not enough function of the kidney. It's like you're squeezing… as the doctor said, you're squeezing a stone, basically. Like, you're trying to get the water out of the body, but the kidneys are non-functioning. Stopping inflammatory cascade at the kidney could be highly beneficial for that. what I… what I… in that moment, which was a lot of grief and a lot of just…

I was very upset about that experience for many months after, but my vision of the future, which has to tie all this back together. So simple. Oh, we're about to use, for an immunocompromised person, a highly toxic antibiotic. We need to use antibiotic, or antifungal, excuse me, to kill this invasive fungus, which will kill them. Of course! Hey, we're all on the same page on that. And… We know that Elethro, cordyceps, chisandra have these kidney protective effects in animal models, mouse models. We haven't randomized controlled it yet. However, there is no evidence of toxicity of these plants in animal models. There is no evidence of drug interaction that we have, and even if there was, the risk It's worth it, because herbal medicinals clear themselves quick enough They're not a… they're not a synthetic, they don't, trick the body in terms of its degradation, so they will be fleshed out.

So even if We have some type of allergic reaction or drug interaction that we don't like, we're willing to take the risk, because the short half-life of medicinal compounds and the positives far outweigh the risks, meaning Okay, we're gonna put them on 4 ounces, literally 4 ounces, of Elethro and Cordycep tincture, high, whatever, high extract volume, maybe there's new, like, extraction, whatever, powders, we're gonna do it.

Mason:

Yeah, whatever. It's the medicine.

Peter:

And, we're gonna do it at the same time. Even though we don't have a randomized controlled trial. We're gonna say, we don't need that. Because the risk, the relative risk is very low for these medicines. We're going to take the risk for the individual so that we can continue to apply this kidney-killing antifungal while providing these medicines that are known to protect that Destructive cascade in the kidney. To give that patient the best chance of living. While we route out this fungal infection. I think that's totally pragmatic and sensible. That is, there's nothing non-medical, like, you know, as some people would say, well, you're not randomized control? No, no, no, stop.

Mason:

That's… so the… because the randomized… the control, say, that… that is around, like, the, you know, whatever, like, the main disease state, and then… Yes, there's… Yeah, go, go, go.

Peter:

It's individual compounds that we need to be able to… even though they don't really follow through on this, but the whole goal is to see metabolically, pharmacinetically, what a single compound does, at the very least, in terms of a cure for a certain condition. So, but it can only be one compound at max 2. The problem is when you get into pharmacinetics, even at one compound, they have… sometimes metabolites, they don't really know… no, not sometimes. A lot of the time, they don't know what they do. But they want to get a general basis, and here's why. They want to see, if we have prescribed this For enough people, statistically relevant, does it do the very thing that we said it does to the mechanism of the disease that we described? And so, it… and then it gets into litigation, it gets into money, it gets into legal issues, it gets into standard of care. This is where the web is all…

it gets real monkey real quick. But if you're just gonna be so pragmatic, just say, okay. That was my… when I walked away from that encounter, I thought, man, it could have just been… Gosh. Could have been so, so much easier. And I don't know what would have happened, but it was sure, surely worth trying.

Mason:

Well, and as you kind of brought it, like, it's statistical. If we have enough integration in the webbing, there's a little look at herbs. And the way that, herbal compounds work in the body, but at the same time, this is where… I don't know if you call it, like, adjunct therapy, we talk to, like, naturopaths and oncologists about that word just sometimes, or Fujiang, just, you know, protect the upright for those in Chinese medicine, or… I like using Fujiang. and introducing that, because it's kind of like, you know, for practitioners, it's kind of like, it's a hot, new, trendy kind of thing. It's like, it's literally just adjunct therapy, but, you know, there's a statistical chance that if you have chemotherapy, in this particular, because it's so nuanced now, chemotherapy, we know that it's going to have this degrading effect here.

And so, at what point does the litigation go from You added something in, and there was a low statistical chance that it was going to interact, but it was so low that we were willing to use it, because the outcome's so high, like… You know, to, like, you knew about the degrading effect of this, highly… you know, good, necessary, but, like, you knew… you knew that it was gonna… this treatment was gonna degrade, and you didn't do any adjunct therapy to catch that person and ensure that they weren't going to die from the treatment.

Peter:

Now we get into politics.

Mason:

Oh, yeah. Let's become politicians.

Peter:

Yeah, and I think, and ultimately, I would just say to every, like, practitioner out there, whatever the discipline is, this is where, dogma, doctrine, and, and, again, like I said, the patient dies on the altar of the model. That's who dies, that's who gets sick, that's… and who… who, avoidably You could avoid these things. If you're just a little more flexible… I was shocked that the supervising doctor allowed it to begin with. I was like, this is a miracle. This is a miracle. This is a miracle. And… I wish… that I had… But ultimately, if you're in that situation of an intensive care unit. it's a miracle that they even… they had their Grand Rounds in front of me. It's a miracle that they even listened to the… because I advise the… the patient's a relative, and she was unbelievably brave. Yeah, she was very brave. The fact that they listened to her at all, or me, was a miracle.

And, you know, Yeah. But, ultimately, yeah, you get into, sorry, to finish my… that threw me off a little bit. My point was, is that we spend so much time, and you said exactly the same thing I said to my friend that I mentioned earlier, Glenn Bowman, the other day. I said, it amazes me the level And degree in which humans will use intelligence to… Make another person wrong, based on the framework. that they have built. It is such a catastrophic waste of time, energy, and it is 100% not necessary. And I mean that for every single model, meaning conventional medicine, the extreme belligerent, animosity that I often experience, or negligible, kind of non-committal, reaction to any type of therapy other than conventional medicine, that is just a complete waste of time, and it hurts the patient. Just like, like, you know, having…

having a non-pragmatic approach, and holding, you know, hoping something will change when you know an intervention's important. But it's incredible to me how we will create these structures just so we can walk away from an argument being the victor. And it's like, that does not help anybody.

Mason:

Yeah, I was having all these weird thoughts of them being like, that person died, but I was right.

Peter:

Exactly.

Mason:

They're on dialysis for the rest of their life, but nope, nose. I talk about that, like, a lot with, Again, surgery, how cool it is, you know, but, like, when you've got something measurable, like cutting out a gallbladder. And you can, like, yip and yahoo and high-five, and then have something that's, like, measurable, versus… how difficult it is. And well, not… it's actually not difficult, just how time-intensive it is, to… to prevent and the necessity when you can just go, whatever, let's just kick it to, kick it down to surgery right now, and then we're kind of done with that case, and we can close it, because we've got a KPI of case closed.

Peter:

Yeah, it's this… Yep. the room for the individual zeitgeist journey, what that patient needs. Part of what I say about my practice is, and I kind of, you know, Amy, my wife, herbalist, and we work together making medicine. You know, she… She was like, you know, you really need to explain that part of what you do is you're a patient advocate. She's like, I don't think they know once they're with you. But, like, you're not really explaining that, and I still don't really explain it, but… But I… it is surpri… it's not surprising to me, but what I'm reflecting on is that… A large part of my work is to empower and to help guide the person through potentially life-threatening choices based on Negligent… negligent and lack of focused thinking. I mean, that's actually a huge part of my practice. Say, hey, look, let me… let me… what did they say they wanted to do? Let's talk this through.

So they're going to do this thing, these are the threats, did they talk to you about that? I mean, it's… They don't. It is very rare for a patient to fully understand what is going to happen to them. Very rare. In fact, I would say… never. Never. I have never had a patient come in, and I say to them, hey, do you understand All of these things. I've never had a patient go, oh yeah, yeah, I'm fully aware that there's this problem here, this problem with that kidney and the liver, and then it sets me up for this, and blah blah blah. And the f- yeah, so I just want to say that. And the final thing I want to say, just as a… I feel like I'm, like, like a little, like, flag waiver for the kidney. But you mentioned dialysis, and it just… this kidney experience. I think that that organ is much more regenerative than we think.

Mason:

Hmm, that's interesting.

Peter:

And my experience with that is. I've had a small, very small sample size of cases. So, you know, again, this is part of that individual experience. You have to take that, metabolize that as a practitioner. You have to pay attention to what's possible, pay attention to the numbers. But I've had… I believe that the kidney is actually much more resilient. And there is this paper, I think in 2006, which we talked about this before, and I talked about it in the last podcast, but it just always echoes for me. that as long as the connective tissue of the kidney is intact, so meaning a piece of it hasn't been removed, like, either through trauma or something like that, that it actually has a regenerative capacity. It's not like a battery where it's, like, 100%, and you're kind of, like, leaking kidney cells, like they used to say. And same thing with the brain.

The brain can regenerate and recover. But what's really interesting to that is that they seem remarkably responsive to herbal therapy, meaning when you have declining kidney function to keep somebody off of dialysis, for multiple reasons, whether it's a heart condition, prediabetes, diabetes, whether it's, Yeah, heart condition cardiovascular, whether it's membrane problems, there's sometimes a problem with the membrane itself, where the vessels, vascularize, the glomeruli, they can get, damaged, and, And I just want to say that. I've been noticing that they are… they… in every single case that they've had, they've improved. Even though they've been considered, you know, you're just kind of on the route to dialysis, and you're gonna have to get either a kidney transplant at some point.

Even immune-reactive kidney conditions where the immune system is actually targeting, or building immunity wrong. It's called IgA nephropathy. that seems to be in complete remission for multiple years now, and the kidney function is, you know, in the 90s now, and EGFR, which is good kidney function. And a lot of that is treatment with needles, but a lot of it is herbal compounds. And so I just… I want to say that because I… my suspicion is, is that… It is much more regenerative, and indeed, all of the organs of the body, to varying degrees, are much more regenerative than we give them credit for. We have this kind of, like, oh, they're just, like, messed up, and they're gonna be messed up. I don't know if that's true in every case.

Mason:

Nice one to leave people with. That's your KPI. Regenerate 200 pairs of kidneys for me, and… Come back and we'll shift the… We'll collectively shift the opinion of the system on that one.

Peter:

I hope so.

Mason:

Me too. Hey, people can come visit you who are in LA, or any of our crew that are cruising through LA? Is that appropriate to say? Yup.

Peter:

Absolutely. Yeah, you can just go to my website, petergalli.com, And… yeah.

Mason:

Up in Hollywood, baby. Yeah, that's where the clinic is, in Hollywood?

Peter:

Yeah, it's actually… yes, mid-city, Lower West Hollywood, yeah.

Mason:

And your website, anyone that wants to dive into everything that you're talking about, what other resources you got going there at the moment?

Peter:

Yeah, it's just pretty simple now, but I'm working on a professional class. I've been working on it for a long time with my colleague Todd Gonzalez, and that is a… deep dive into the, Yellow Emperor's, corpus, so it's not just the Huang Di Nijing anymore. It's the, Taisu, as well as the Zhenzhu Jaijing, so we… that's been a… a challenging labor. It's been probably 3 years of working on it now. And… that's for professionals. At some point, I will be more vocal. I'm just not sure exactly how to do that yet, but probably a substack. And probably some type of… video information, because I do think it's important, because I realize a lot of these ideas are… A lot of people share, and it's important for not only practitioners, but patients to have, because there are possibilities out there.

and things that can help you, and even if something doesn't work, it doesn't mean that you can't continue to try and look, and that's the path that we're all on. And it's okay that it's like that. So, one day.

Mason:

And is Yindu, like, the tinctures, herbal tinctures, practitioner only, or can people get access to them? Us plebs, as we call ourselves?

Peter:

Yes. Yeah, we have 3 general blends right now.

Mason:

Our stomach ease, our sweet dreams, and our complete immune support.

Peter:

And in the future, we might add two other blends, but right now, those are the ones we focus on. And, general, people can order, tinctures, and also, they can order custom tinctures as well. We all have a herb list up there, so if you have in mind something that you want, you can put it in the notes, and we can also make it, or email us, and we can talk. Very cool.

Mason:

He said.

Peter:

Thank you so much.

Mason:

That's alright, do you send to Oz, yeah?

Peter:

Do I send to Australia?

Mason:

Yeah, yeah.

Peter:

You know… I believe we could. We haven't yet.

Mason:

I think it could. They'll have… there'll be… oh, we've got quite a few people from the States listening, but… Well, not… from North America, but yeah, there'll be a few people from us who, I think would love to take advantage. I've been to the… to the… the herb lab as well, before you've upgraded. I believe you've got some bigger perks now, right? But, like.

Peter:

Yeah.

Mason:

Yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of intents, probably another podcast, in terms of, like, herbal extraction and, you know, relation, you know, all that… all that work that goes into working with herbals, but, But yeah, they're extracted very well, everybody. Love it, bro.

Peter:

Jeez.

Mason:

Big love to you and the family, looking forward to getting out to the, LA at some point, and seeing you again, but, go well in the meantime.

Peter:

You too. Very, very grateful to be talking with you, and wishing you well to your family, too, and all your endeavors, and to SuperFeast, and yeah, just a lot of love to you.

Mason:

Thanking you!