Dr. Elkana Waarsenburg - The Netherlands

After finishing high school in 1996, Elkana Waarsenburg, started studying Biology at Leiden University (NL). In 1997, she attained a degree in Biology and started studying Medicine. During her second year in Medicine, she volunteered to work in South Africa. She was really shocked by the poor medical circumstances there and realised the importance of traditional medicine in developing countries. Fascinated by this she decided in 1999 to go to Indonesia to do research on traditional medicine. Elkana Waarsenburg went in the summer of 2000 to the island Flores to a village Kewapante. There she worked together with Sr. Revokata S.Sp.S.. She is a nun who is in charge of a dispensary where medicines, extracted from medicinal plants, are being produced and put into practice. By following a course in Medical Cultural Anthropology at the faculty of Cultural Anthropology in Leiden (NL) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. L.J. Slikkerveer, Elkana gained more insight in the importance of integral medicine.

Focussing on Upper Respiratory Infections (URI) and Tuberculosis (TB) she gained insight in the medical situation in the Indonesian Sikka district. In 2002 she concluded her docteral medical studies with writing her final thesis on Flores Home Remedies, Self medication through indigenous Indonesian medicine in case of URI and TB.

During her stay in Indonesia she was confronted with severe electricity problems in the clinic. Supported by Remedi (a non-profit volunteering organisation, www.remedi.org), St. Viccentius Vereniging ‘s-Hertogenbosch (a volunteering organisation) and Rembrandt Het Concert Leiden (a foundation for good causes), she worked for a year with Rien Cooijmans (a Dutch volunteer) to collect money for the clinic on Flores. With this financial support, the clinic was able to buy a new generator.

After obtaining her degree in Medicine in 2002, she started her residency at the Academic Medical Centre in Leiden (NL), which she finished in September 2004. Since then, she is attending several courses in Flower essences, Bio–energetica and Tibetan meditations ( Lama Gangchen) , which she put, together with other experiences both in live and in medicine, into practice. In March 2006, she will start specialising to become a general practitioner. In the future she hopes, with starting up her own practice, to bring her (growing!) knowledge of integral medicine even more into practice.

Blockages of the human energy field, diseases and flower essences in relation to inner and outer environment

During my eight years of medical education (doctoral study and two years residency of internal medicine) I expected to gain more insight in the essence of life, causes of diseases and treatment of the human being. I did learn to recognise all kinds of symptoms, diseases, and treatments (pathogenesis), but I didn’t learn about the human being itself, the inside feelings and the self healing capacity (salutogenesis).

In our Western society we learn from the beginning of our life to look at things and interpret them by our mind. We learn to rationalise (dictionary: way of thinking in which the mind or ratio is dominant). We grow up in a world where the outer environment has become the main focus to live for.

In this way we learn that our search for comfort and love lies in the materialistic outer world. We are too much focussed on the mind and give little attention to our body and feelings inside. We can’t even feel or remember anymore that we have consciousness and an energy field. How come?

Since start of life or even before birth, we get in contact with all kinds of influences from the outer environment. We have to deal with daily matters like study, work, house, family, partner and bank accounts. We also have to learn to deal with the inner environment, such as difficult or painful feelings like dissapointments, loneliness, painful memories from the past, worries about the future, anger, jealousy, fear and lack of love.

It’s very difficult to remain in balance and to stay focussed on our inner self with all these imprints. We endure all kinds of emotional, physical and (spiritual) traumas and it gets etched into our inner energy system. With or without realising, we create blockages inside of us, which leads to a feeling we have solved the problem. But in fact we have blocked our inner feelings and thereby the Divine flow of energy! The more we block the more difficult or frightening it is to go to the inner side. We even got lost in this so far, that the we hardly can’t remember and feel our connection with our Divine Self.

This results in the fact that we give less attention to our body and our consciousness. This has great impact on our state of health.
The energetic blockages we create, result in a problem of the energy flowing through the whole body. This impairs our immune system, because it stays in close contact with this inner energy flow and is thereby closely related to the causes of diseases. This ancient knowledge seems to be forgotten in the Western countries. But those involved in old traditions,like in America, Tibet, Australia and sub-Saharan Africa, still understand this ways of energy medicine and work with it. Mr. Alberto Villoldo for example is a psychologist and cultural anthropologist and did some interesting research on this subject. From his perception (Inca Sjamanism),he speaks about the Luminated Energy Field (LUF).

It can take weeks, months or even years before we really get notice of these blockages at the outside (symptoms of diseases in the body) or inside (feeling tired, exhausted, sick). At this point, we should realise that we can no longer deny our inner call. But even then, we still ask our family doctor for a “denying pill” (like painkillers, antibiotics or corticosteroids). We even expect a general practitioner or specialist to solve this disease, instead of ourselves. We remain searching for a “solution” outside instead of dealing with the real problem inside.

At the end of my residency, I got in touch with a Western educted general practitioner, Mr J.Hoogers, who is working with a mixture of integrated medicine like Touch for health, Bio-energetica, Neural Therapy, Reiki, Meditation and Flower essences. It was incredible to see how he puts this integrated point of view into practice. He treats every person in their own context and helps to dissolve blockages. By doing this, he supports the body to remember the unique luminous energy field again, and thereby to revitalise the immune system. All kinds of (chronic) diseases of the patients start to decrease and get cured. I too learned to look at diseases from a totally different point of view. I found it very confronting to realise that I had similar blockages. I realised that I first had to heal and remember my inner Self, before becomming a doctor who can look and work at diseases from all points of view.

To achive this goal,I first started with following a course of Bio- energetica (Alexander Lowen). This therapy focuses on breathing therapies, sounds therapies and all kinds of body exercises. It teaches us to get in contact with our body again, instead of staying focussed on the mind. Slowly I become more conscious about my feelings, and I begin to understand our Divine energy by heart instead by ratio,what I did before.

Secondly I followed a course of Flower essences taught by Mr Bram Zaalbergen. This therapy uses energetic essences, extracted from flowers from wild plants, trees or shrubs. Only the life energy of the plant or flower is used. These flower essences help us to dissolve blockages and thereby help us to gain insight in our consciousness. This knowledge too seemed to be forgotten in our Western world.

Everything in life is surrounde by an energetic field (LUF),which stays in direct contact with the environment. It seems that all these energy fields are influenced by each other. Recent discoveries in quantum physics, and the work of Mr Masaru Emoto (“The message of water”), illustrate this. Mr Emoto showed pictures of the influence of the environment on the structure of frozen water.

Working now with the flower essences, I am starting to understand that in a very subtle way, deeply hidden emotions can surface and can be healed. The flowers, rooted in mother earth, are the expression of an unique creation of the Divine. They help to bring back the recognition and realisation of joy and the desire to grow in harmony and love.

I also got in contact with Lama Gangchen. Through him, I am again learning to get in contact with my body from a totally different point of view. The Tibetan Tantric self-healing meditation method taught by Lama Gangchen, deals with many different therapies. It teaches purification of the body, speech and mind and the whole inner and outer environment. I am very excited and enthusiastic to dicover that this method is helping me in a profound way to release my own blockages.

Last but not least: Prayer. I have experienced that my praying gets more intense every day. I grew up in a Catholic/ Jewish family. Through the years, I learned how powerful praying can be. A prayer abundant with love works through the Divine universal energy and has a profound influence on the outer and inner environment.

I am starting to understand that there are thousands ways of walking on the path towards God and that He/She has a thousand names (Allah, Buddha, Jaweh, Divine Energy,LUF….). As mentioned above, there is a very important connection between blockages and the course of disease. It is important to integrate this view into my daily practice and I think we all (as doctors/healers) should integrate this into our medical systems.

My dream is to clear all my blockages and to get in total harmony with the inner and outer environment. I hope to get even more into contact with the Divine energy and I hope to find a way to dedicate this energy to contribute to the healing of our beloved world.