By Mark O. Mathews
Natural Health Practitioner BSc Hon Ecol. DO. MICAP
Since joining the Scientific & Medical Network (SMN) www.facebook.com/scientificandmedicalnetwork at the instigation of the late D. M. A. Leggett, (then vice Chancellor of Surrey University), I have been actively engaged in some of their proceedings. The Network is devoted to the emergence of a more enlightened world – a world in which the wisdom of spirituality and the thoughtfulness is employed to encourage the evolution of a sustainable balance between people’s intuitive wisdom and the power of science and technology.
I am pleased that I attended this year’s Annual Gathering in Surrey under the title of “Evolving towards a Wise and Flourishing Future”. It is wonderful to be included amongst an inspiring number of highly qualified academics, scientists, researchers, philosophers, psychologists, therapists and engineers and to hear their thoughts on the future of the world and mankind. To be able to engage with and discuss these pressingly important matters at this critical point in our history is important. The impact of man’s activities in the world is at an accelerating rate producing worryingly destructive effects on the world’s economic, political and ecological environment as well as the mental and physical health and wellbeing of the population at large.
Sitting next to one person around a table during one of the meals I happened to hear him saying to one of the other people that he has been expelled from school at the age of 14, unable to read or write. Since this is an experience to which I was subjected in exactly the same way, I was interested to find out more. In 1966 he joined Marks and Spencer as a trainee and eventually became joint managing director, a position from which he retired in 1999. He explained that he achieved this not in an intellectual academic way but through following his intuition.
I have since looked him up on the web and discovered that he was created a life peer as Baron of Black Heath in October 1997 and is currently a director of several non-government organisations and is involved in several charities. It seems that many of the people who have made major breakthroughs and contributions to the world throughout history have been dyslexic and more right brain dominant. Being imaginative, having intuition and being creative they are often more able to grasp things in terms of the bigger picture.
Intuitively being in touch with the more subtle energetic exchanges that link everything together in a living dynamic organic web of mutual interdependence is what some people would call the spiritual aspects of reality. Combined with love, sensitivity empathy compassion, moral values and a sense of fairness, it is still possible to create a better future for the world and mankind. We certainly do need logical, rational left brain dominant people in the world. Unfortunately, they are now in the ascendant. The obsessive pursuit of short term economic profits above and beyond the need to give due consideration to the toxic effects that it is having on our physical and mental health, as well as the ecosystem as a whole, is already becoming obvious to intelligent rationally balanced people.
The Sunflower Trust (www.sunflowertrust.com) is a charity that I founded more than 20 years ago based on a holistic integrative approach to natural healing.
We use this approach for assessment and healing at the Reve Pavilion Natural Health Clinic in Guildford. If you are interested you can find out more about it via our web site: