We believe you will find a balanced viewpoint in our course content which leaves room for students to interpret as best fits their world view and spiritual background.  To learn more about our mission at the Herbal Academy, do keep reading below:

Our courses are developed using information gleaned from historical herbal traditions, modern practice, and scientific research, all woven together to tell the story of the properties of our herbal allies and the holistic approach to herbalism. We believe that all of these traditions/fields have important things to offer the study and practice of herbalism, as does personal experience. We consider science, practical experience, and traditional wisdom three legs of the herbalism stool.

Ayurveda and other traditions such as Chinese Medicine have and continue to influence Western Herbalism, and are interwoven in the fabric and practice of herbalism. While we are not trying to push any particular ideology on our students, we do feel that these traditional systems, which have been used for thousands of years, have important insights to offer into the energetics of dis-ease and imbalance and the energetics of the appropriate therapeutics helpful in restoring balance. They offer our students multiple frameworks within which to support wellness as well as evaluate, understand, and correct the imbalances they may encounter. For example, they can use the insights about body constitutions and energetics from Ayurveda to help understand what is going on in the body from a holistic viewpoint, and thus help understand the underlying cause of imbalance and then choose supportive herbs accordingly.

You will find that certain concepts have different names in different systems but speak to similar observations, suggesting that these are not necessarily unique to a particular “ideology”. We feel that these traditional frameworks offer valuable insights along with the insights we are gaining from modern scientific inquiry.

We love science! We integrate scientific research and clinical studies into our teachings routinely - we feel that when we can present a traditional use of an herb and then provide scientific validation of that use, it only strengthens our knowledge. And we understand that science is a language our modern culture embraces. That being said, we also deeply value and are indebted to the wisdom gained through centuries of traditional herbal practice in cultures around the world, and strive to highlight that as well.

In our courses we are trying to go beyond a purely scientific, evidence-based Western medicine framework wherein we substitute herbs for pharmaceuticals by also highlighting the insights that practical experience and traditional wisdom can provide.

The Herbal Academy courses are a collaborative effort amongst herbalists of a variety of backgrounds and approaches - clinical herbalists, Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine practitioners, community herbalists, folk herbalists, botanists, and even doctors. This is by design, as we want our courses to reflect a variety of approaches -- as there is no one-size-fits-all approach for our student community. The variety in the courses is reflective of the variety within the herbal community, and gives our students a taste for the texture and scope of herbalism.

The Herbal Academy team is committed to providing current, well-researched articles, monographs, and course curriculum. We rely on our well-respected contributors and members of the herbalism community as well as the scientific literature to ensure that the information we are offering is defensible, both by hands-on experience and clinical practice as well as clinical research.

I hope this gives you a sense of what you can expect and why we choose to include various traditions in our courses, but please feel free to reach out with any further questions - we’d love to have you in our student community!