Herbal medicine learning

I know I could search the internet, but it’s so hard to filter through everything and figure out what’s legit.
I’m admittedly flaky- I often come up with an idea of what I want to be when I grow up and then change my mind. But one thing I’m considering is registered herbalist, someone to advise people on how to use herbs to improve their health. Does anyone know where to start? What courses are legit?

I am hoping some folks will come back with exactly what you are wanting.

I got conflicting information:

Most folks entering the herbal field want to know whether they can become a certified or licensed herbalist—in the same vein that nutritionists and massage therapists can become certified and licensed. The truth is, there is currently no certifying agency or licensing board for herbalists in the United States—and therefore, no such thing as an herbalist certification or a professional title such as Master Herbalist or Certified Herbalist.

There are a few exceptions, such as earning a college-accredited degree in herbalism, becoming a Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist, or becoming a Naturopathic Doctor.

https://chestnutherbs.com/the-truth-about-herbal-certification-and-master-herbalist-status/

First, you should know that membership in the AHG is not required to be an herbalist in the U.S. You can practice herbalism as an extension of your protected free speech in many states without being an AHG member or a Registered Herbalist (RH) (keep an eye out for my on-demand CE course on legal issues for herbalists coming soon). However, I consider the AHG to be the preeminent organization for herbalists, and recommend that you join as a student and start working towards your clinical hour requirement that you’ll need, along with your academic training, to eventually become a Registered Herbalist.

https://achs.edu/blog/2017/02/16/how-to-become-an-ahg-registered-herbalist/

https://www.americanherbalistsguild.com/becoming-ahg-rh-member

I have grown Lemon Verbena commercially. So, I subscribe to online herbal business news sites. You might find Herbalgram.org really interesting and helpful. My own first thought for you is this (coming from my law school-tainted brain) - Federal, state, and local laws will affect your career as a student of herbal medicine and your practice of herbal medicine, more and more as time goes by. It is not getting less complicated, even though we have the entire world at our fingertips online. It is getting more complicated by legislation. You will want to stand back and look at your many options for study and practice now, and be brave about reaching out to herbal practitioners in the area where you would like to live and practice. The local area will really matter, so think about that ahead of time. Have fun learning about herbs!

Thank you both so much for replying and for sharing all this info and things to think about! I do imagine it will get more difficult with future regulation, and wonder if I should just continue to learn as a way to help myself and my family and friends, to provide information to others on traditional uses, and perhaps grow some useful herbs to sell.

Oh, Bethany, for sure always keep learning! That will lead you to your unique interests and ways to contribute, to your friends and family as well as in your profession. When you go for walks and see the weeds you will know them by name. It's like going for a walk among lots of friends!

If your goal is gaining confidence in knowledge for your own family and informaly helping others, perhaps look into the Homegrown Herbalist School. Doc Jones has a clinic for humans and a clinic for veterinarian services. This gives him actual experience with treating catastrophic things such as gunshot wounds.

He has had a few posts on permies such as this success story.

I am self taught through books, his course is still on my wish list.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:If your goal is gaining confidence in knowledge for your own family and informaly helping others, perhaps look into the Homegrown Herbalist School. Doc Jones has a clinic for humans and a clinic for veterinarian services. This gives him actual experience with treating catastrophic things such as gunshot wounds.

He has had a few posts on permies such as this success story.

I am self taught through books, his course is still on my wish list.

Thanks so much I will definitely check it out

Hey there,
I'm a trained herbalist in Port Angeles and I teach a lot of classes locally at the Dandelion Botanical Apothecary in Dungeness Seqium and also at Peninsula College. There's others teaching classes in herbalism at these sites, as well. Ravens Roots Nature School is also a very economical and top notch place to get training.

I am not a registered herbalist nor do I plan to become one. I know enough people who are a part of the AHG organization and they appear to be mostly professional folks with established medical licenses in Naturopathy, Nursing, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda. It costs a lot to get the required training and experience to apply for AHG. If you have plenty of money and time then maybe it's worth it, but without it, you can operate as an herbalist and earn a very small living legitimately. Training is a must if you plan to support healing with people. You must have some basic understanding of anatomy, physiology and the herbal actions. You just don't want to hurt anyone or become liable in some way. If you are just a community herbalist operating at a pretty low level then registered level isn't necessary. Most registered herbalists still have to back this up with a medical license and it's like an add-on to their already busy practice (because herbs are popular and big business now!). I don't think that regulation will hit us. Product makers will get hit before we community herbalists do. I hope!

I hustle constantly and I'm barely making it. Many have gone the way of super capitalist product making website marketing strategies and a lot of expensive investments in social media marketing, labelling, branding and shipping. Not my thing but some people do this well and it's a lot of work and takes much time, energy and financial resources. The rich herbalists are doing great--they have every resource and can afford all the tools and gardens and labor and plants and investing. The herbalists without these resources work their butts off and need a lot of time to rest after so much labor. I wish I was younger and had more energy! It is a beautiful profession. To spend so much time with plants, make herbal medicines and help people discover the healing connections to mother earth is a gift. This keeps me going but I've moved from wealthy California and it's not so easy to make a living in wellness here. I love this town and the people here are great but the lower economic situation is tough for an herbalist who used to easily get tons of work and clients and students in northern Cal. I had enough resources and business there to give much of my business and I ran a free herbal clinic in the community! So far I have not met people who are capable of making enough money to do this free work. We are all scraping by. It's still a good job, but be willing to work hard, serve, study long hours, research research learn and learn then maybe if you are lucky and talented and the stars align, you will be a working herbalist who can pay the bills! Oh, and did I mention that it helps to have LAND! I don't have any, but it's so helpful for an herbalist to have a garden--at least I have a small one that teaches me many things and supplies my small household with herbs for health and happiness....

Best of luck!
Drea

And we also have Judson Carroll a permies member who by has posted a lot of his knowledge here.

 Judson Carroll is an Herbalist from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

His weekly articles may be read at judsoncarroll.com

His weekly podcast may be heard at: www.spreaker.com/show/southern-appalachian-herbs

He offers free, weekly herb classes: https://rumble.com/c/c-618325

Bethany Brown wrote:I know I could search the internet, but it’s so hard to filter through everything and figure out what’s legit.
I’m admittedly flaky- I often come up with an idea of what I want to be when I grow up and then change my mind. But one thing I’m considering is registered herbalist, someone to advise people on how to use herbs to improve their health. Does anyone know where to start? What courses are legit?

In 1978, I was in Trinidad on vacation. The morning after I arrived, I was in the washroom coughing up black blood. That was pretty scary. But I was also annoyed. I was 28 years old. I followed my doctors advice my entire life. Yet I was always sick. Now, here I was coughing my life out in great gobs. Once I was able to catch my breath, my first thoughts were, how could this be happening and what can I do about it. That led me to make a personal commitment to take personal charge of my own health instead of leaving it up to my doctors.

Back in 1978, that was a revolutionary concept and there were no books on the subject in local bookstores. The idea that you could resolve poor health with food was known to people who ran spas and sanatoriums devoted to health restoration. But they were outside mainstream public awareness and only rich white people took advantage of them in North America as far as I know.

The father of Nutritional Medicine was a scientist known as Professor Arnold Ehret who published a book titled The Mucusless Diet in 1922. It's still available but not widely known. He was world-famous in his day for the miraculous cures he enabled using fasting and vegetables. As you might expect, the Medical Authorities globally tried to shut him up and disparaged his work. He took care of that for him by slipping and falling over backwards and cracking his skull on the pavement. His work soon disappeared from public knowledge.

In the intervening decades before I found the book, other doctors had picked up where he left off. When they did, they ran into the same problems Ehret did and they became pariahs within the medical community.

Things didn't really get going until the publication of a book called the F Plan Diet in 1980. That book was the first to educate the public on the value of fibre in the diet. That book generated a lot of medical attention and from there, self-help medical books started appearing. Each of them espoused a single, narrow approach to health restoration. There were so many of them that they soon confused the core issue of how to go about a body wide health restoration. There were lots of conflicting ideas that persist to this day. That is where your confusion comes from Bethany.

When I started to attempt to restore my own health and save my life, I soon realized the field was vast and that I'd better start writing things down. In early 1995, one of my interior design customers, my biggest one, insisted that in future, I draw all of their store on computer. I had to learn from scratch. It didn't take me long to realize that compiling the information on computer was the way to go.

By 2015, I'd amassed a huge inventory of health restoration information from countless sources. The best part of that was that unlike pretty well anyone else, I had everything necessary to enable me to sort out what was useful and what was nonsense.

Everything I do goes back to my work with Tropical Fish. I started with them in 1962 when I was 12. Being hearing impaired, I didn't get much out of school, but I studied my fish, bred them, healed them, raised their offspring and most importantly, learned how to feed them correctly. I was in the fish business for 20 years as a hobbyist to a pro. Kind of unique in Canada. That journey taught me the physiological realities of how nutrition and the food consumed directly impact the quality of life of a fish. Any fish. Any creature. However, at the time, I didn't relate that to human health. Humans are exceptional creatures after all and according to medical opinion, food is illness-neutral - even today believe it or not.

Anyway, by the 90s I was well-versed on how the food we eat and what we drink affects every cell in our bodies 24/7. Eventually forums like this one popped up and I participated and started teaching people what I'd learned. No one believed me and I got called everything imaginable. That changed one day when a woman in Alaska agreed with me and confirmed that she'd tried what I said and it worked. That site was called the Grapevine and it was sponsored by a Toronto radio station, CFRB. Eventually, it was yanked because, as happens to most forums, a lot of hostility erupts. That's why this site is so the other way and tries hard to ensure hostility is kept at bay even when their position is wrong and unreasonable. I accept that because I tried running my own forum for a while and found that I spent most of my time fending off trouble-makers, gambling casinos, hookers and other types of fraud. Eventually, I gave up. There were no protections in those days. Now there are.

Anyway, the deal is that when you attempt to convey what you learn in your narrow area of discovery, herbs in your case Bethany, it comes with a hidden price. No herbalist is going to be able to teach you the broad spectrum of how physiology works in real life that you need to know in order to make herbalism stand up to scrutiny. It does not because herbalism, as good as the practice can be is a subject that depends on the purveyor understanding of how the body works. By that I mean, how a normal human body works.

The medical profession started off as barbers and butchers assigned to battlefields throughout history. They had little to no knowledge about what they were doing. So they never practiced healing a normal sick person. When they did start, they started with sick people with no understanding of what a functioning healthy person looked like or how their parts interacted with each other or with food and drink. This is still the case for the most part today. Nutrition as taught to doctors takes 15 minutes in medical school. During  that 15 minutes they learn how to make baby formula. You can check that out by accessing the stated course of studies from any medical school. I looked at three Canadian Universities: the University of Toronto, McGill University of Montreal and Queens University in Kingston.

The other thing wannabe doctors learn in school is which foods interfere with which medications. That's why nutritionists and dieticians have to defer to doctors instead of the other way around. That's why you are told to consult your doctor before embarking on a dietary change. That advice does not presume that your doctor knows anything at all about nutrition. The reality is that most of them know less than you do.

In 2015, I decided to compile my information into a book. The golden rule about that is this: if you don't have a title that will sell your book, DON'T WRITE THE BOOK.

After countless hours of deliberation, I decided Nutritional Medicine was my title of choice. I was almost finished when a doctor published a book titled NUTRITIONAL MEDICINE.

I helped the doctor promote his book in Canada. (He's American). He gave me a copy of it for my efforts. At that time the selling price was $300.00.

The best part was that after reading through it, I realized this doctor had very little understanding about the subject of his own book. He had recorded case studies of illnesses that had been cured using foods and herbs instead of what we call traditional medicine. The term traditional medicine is a misnomer. There is nothing at all traditional about modern medicine. All traditional cures that work are some form of food unless you're talking broken bones and accidental physical damage. Of course, pathogens such as Malaria, and other communicable diseases have an impact as well, especially insects and microbes.  The truth is that people simply cannot get sick if they are eating what they evolved to eat and nothing else. Until the introduction of dairy and grains to our diets, illness was rare. After the introduction of grain, dairy and much later, sugar, humans were just as healthy as other wild animals because that's what we were.

So, what we're mostly talking about is illness due to diet. Herbs are a great way of sorting those issues out. But it helps to know why they work and how your organs are supposed to work.

That's where we come back to; where do you start to learn that stuff?

Well you don't because I haven't published that book yet other than a few proof manuscripts where it's all explained.

It was never published because I was overcome by an inherited genetic condition called Haemochromotosis.  In English that is iron overload. A person with that condition cannot avoid absorbing excess iron from all food sources and having their entire body become toxic. Toxicity like that affects all of your organs, how they operate and how you think. Most people don't notice the impact until late in life. Generally it's misdiagnosed. In my case it's been active since birth. I have all of my report cards and my symptoms were noted by nearly every teacher I ever had. None of them understood what they were remarking about.

That was in part why I was coughing up black blood in 1978. But not entirely. That was mostly due to a lack of enzymes from not eating enough vegetables. It was resolved when I walked out of the washroom and into a garden party next door where I was offered a coconut to drink fresh off the tree in the neighbour's yard. I was cured by the time I finished the coconut.

Anyway, one of the symptoms of iron toxicity is mental confusion. By 2015, I'd long since retired from my interior design business because of my decreasing mental acuity. I could no longer handle the complexities necessary to manage a construction site and the paperwork. Rather than keep going, screw up projects and get sued, I stopped accepting projects. My condition combined with my deafness, left me unemployable and I remained so until 2017 when I started my manufacturing business.

The intervening years from 2007 left me with a lot of dead time. I used it to continue my health restoration research in the hopes of figuring out what was wrong with me. In the process, I learned much more because the internet is now well-populated with truncated information about how to cure nearly anything by yourself. That is if you know where to start and who to believe.

I used my knowledge to solve a couple of murders and identify who the real criminals were in both of them. The authorities don't want to know. One of the people murdered was our then-Federal Finance Minister, Jim Flaherty. I ran my findings by a heart specialist and my GP to see what they thought. They independently agreed with my findings. Both cases were in the first proof edition that ran to over 500 pages.

The title I eventually settled on is A PORTRAIT OF A GOOD SHIT.

My publicist (American) doesn't like the word shit in the title so I've changed the title a number of times. A PORTRAIT OF A GOOD SHIT still wins every survey. So we are still in a standoff. American media won't allow it..Z

I keep learning though and have decided that it would be best to rewrite the book so that more people can benefit. I'm going to do that on this site for the members. The beauty is that you who read it can question what I say and receive an almost immediate answer. In that way, you will very quickly find out whether I know what I'm talking about or not. If it turns out, I'm full of shit, then I'll stop and delete everything and will not publish the book. I have an international reputation for many things and I'm not about to spoil that reputation with a whiff of bullshit.

So there you go, Bethany, you will be able to figure out what you don't know starting with my next post.

How does it fit on this site? Easy, this site is all about permaculture. What is permaculture for ultimately? It's the preservation of knowledge about the natural world. Of those natural elements that everyone wants to preserve are our own children. The fruits of our horticultural endeavours are intended to feed our families, friends and neighbours. My shared knowledge is intended to show you how what you grow impacts your families, friends and neighbours.  I'm hoping to show you how vitally important your interests in the here and now are to future generations. What I'm going to do is offer you a way to shape your own life's purpose. In doing so, I'll give more purpose to my own life.

In the end, this international community will be more cohesive and much closer-knit. That is one of my dreams.

Andrea Moore wrote:Hey there,
I'm a trained herbalist in Port Angeles and I teach a lot of classes locally at the Dandelion Botanical Apothecary in Dungeness Seqium and also at Peninsula College. There's others teaching classes in herbalism at these sites, as well. Ravens Roots Nature School is also a very economical and top notch place to get training.

I am not a registered herbalist nor do I plan to become one. I know enough people who are a part of the AHG organization and they appear to be mostly professional folks with established medical licenses in Naturopathy, Nursing, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda. It costs a lot to get the required training and experience to apply for AHG. If you have plenty of money and time then maybe it's worth it, but without it, you can operate as an herbalist and earn a very small living legitimately. Training is a must if you plan to support healing with people. You must have some basic understanding of anatomy, physiology and the herbal actions. You just don't want to hurt anyone or become liable in some way. If you are just a community herbalist operating at a pretty low level then registered level isn't necessary. Most registered herbalists still have to back this up with a medical license and it's like an add-on to their already busy practice (because herbs are popular and big business now!). I don't think that regulation will hit us. Product makers will get hit before we community herbalists do. I hope!

I hustle constantly and I'm barely making it. Many have gone the way of super capitalist product making website marketing strategies and a lot of expensive investments in social media marketing, labelling, branding and shipping. Not my thing but some people do this well and it's a lot of work and takes much time, energy and financial resources. The rich herbalists are doing great--they have every resource and can afford all the tools and gardens and labor and plants and investing. The herbalists without these resources work their butts off and need a lot of time to rest after so much labor. I wish I was younger and had more energy! It is a beautiful profession. To spend so much time with plants, make herbal medicines and help people discover the healing connections to mother earth is a gift. This keeps me going but I've moved from wealthy California and it's not so easy to make a living in wellness here. I love this town and the people here are great but the lower economic situation is tough for an herbalist who used to easily get tons of work and clients and students in northern Cal. I had enough resources and business there to give much of my business and I ran a free herbal clinic in the community! So far I have not met people who are capable of making enough money to do this free work. We are all scraping by. It's still a good job, but be willing to work hard, serve, study long hours, research research learn and learn then maybe if you are lucky and talented and the stars align, you will be a working herbalist who can pay the bills! Oh, and did I mention that it helps to have LAND! I don't have any, but it's so helpful for an herbalist to have a garden--at least I have a small one that teaches me many things and supplies my small household with herbs for health and happiness....

Best of luck!
Drea

Thank you Andrea, I wish you had been around for me to learn from back in the 70s when it would have changed everything and would have made my career and life so much less challenging. Better late than never though. Good ideas only work if you pay attention and you have my attention.  

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:If your goal is gaining confidence in knowledge for your own family and informaly helping others, perhaps look into the Homegrown Herbalist School. Doc Jones has a clinic for humans and a clinic for veterinarian services. This gives him actual experience with treating catastrophic things such as gunshot wounds.

He has had a few posts on permies such as this success story.

I am self taught through books, his course is still on my wish list.

I have taken his course - It's amazing! Time and money well spent; I can't recommend him enough!
Because he is also a practicing veterinarian he brings so much more first hand experience which in turn boosted my confidence and has given me a solid place to start. I am currently working with 2 separate doctors for 2 different people trying to switch from big pharma and expensive, unreliably available drugs with unpleasant side affects towards natural herbal remedies.

I would recommend The School of Evolutionary Herbalism with Sajah Popham.

There are some free introductory Lessons you can try to see if the further studies fit your needs. I have done his courses and use much of his information in my work.

He also gives a lot of added disciplines which you can follow (or not), that give his work a holistic value not just confined to herbs per se, Materia Medica Monthly, Herbalist's Guide Book, Defining Clinical Patterns, audio podcasts, etc., which you may find interesting and definitely helpful.

Best wishes with finding the right path for yourself

I recommend any and all trainings by Susun Weed. I apprenticed with her more than 40 years ago. She knows her stuff not only about plants but also biochemistry and human nutrition. She keeps up on medical studies. Remember, there is no recognized "certification" for herbalists in the US. Certified just means you completed their courses. Even if you register as a certified herbalist (there is one or two places for this) it means absolutely nothing in the US.

Your food is your medicine.
And herbal medicine is holistic, from Nature...and as we're a part of Nature, it works!

I took the Intermediate Herbal course from The Herbal Academy back in 2014. It was very thourough, with anatomy and the functions of the body included, so that the knowledge of functionalities of the different herbs would immediately sink in. I enjoyed the course very much and would recommend it to anyone.

Next to taking the course I followed (and still do) Susun Weed, Rosemary Gladstar and Jim Mcdonald on social media.

I've always been interested in herbal medicine, as was my mother before me, so my library on the subject was extensive, with Finnish (native) and English titles.
Then I got the three volumes of "The Earthwise Hebal" by Matthew Wood, and started giving other books away.
It's a personal thing, what kind of reading one finds enjoyable. The Earthwise Herbal is my 'Herbal Bible' because it has plant profiles, background information about bodily functions and herbal effects, and one volume is dedicated to ailments and conditions with clearly prioritised lists of helping herbs plus helpful combinations of herbs (where the synergy of herbs together has more effect than just the sum of individual herbs).

It has always been my vision to be a herbal healer to my community. Life has taken me on other paths in the past ten years, but I'm planting a herbal garden as we speak...

Good luck, enjoy and remember; the learning never ends!
Nina

There has been an herb shop in my hometown since I was a kid here. The guy running it used to pass himself off as an iridologist, but they're still in business, so that says something about the staying power of people's perceived and actual needs when it comes to herbal remedies.

It can be difficult to discern what is quackery and what works. Much of it does work, some of it doesn't.

But if I were to pursue such a path as becoming certified in something related to herbs, I think I'd want something where the knowledge base and expertise were quantifiable.

Becoming a naturopathic doctor is expensive. The degree would be backed by science. It could be a great road for a few folks.

Becoming something like a master naturalist through your state department of natural resources or agriculture might be a more accessible path for more people. That only requires a bachelor's degree, but there are plentiful opportunities to specialize as your interests guide you. If one of those paths is natural and herbal medicinals, so much the better.

For the rest of us, I think the PEP program looks amazing, and I am eager to get out there exploring and finding as many plants as I can. I won't be calling myself anything scientific or business-related. I'll just be making my teas, oil infusions, vinegar infusions, decoctions, tinctures, syrups, salves, and poultices from the plants that are native to my area.  If I can eventually get an iron badge in that, I'd be happy. And I think I'd be confident enough in my knowledge that I would be a helpful resource within my little circle of influence.

https://permies.com/wiki/108662

j

If you're interested in Chinese Herbology, I suggest Rocky Mountain Herbal Institute (https://www.rmhiherbal.org/). I studied with Roger way back in the early 90s and he teaches excellent fundamentals and yet keeps up with new issues in treatment such as heavy metal toxicity. He doesn't support certification and you can learn more on this directly from him. His training is online now, the price is reasonable, and there are various levels of training depending upon your goals. This isn't a "light" training by any means. There is a lot of information that requires time to learn and practice.

I've also studied Western herbology for 45+ years but the approach of TCM has been far more useful for me since it's a whole body assessment and treatment.  Not just treatment of symptoms.

Good luck in whichever path you choose.

Many years ago, there was accessible site on German Commission E Monographs. It disappeared, but one can buy a book
"The Complete German Commission E Monographs: Therapeutic Guide to Herbal Medicines"  Hardcover starting at $400 +
Those monographs contained scientific study of plants, their usage, dosage and so on. It was very detailed.
The study was  a completion of many decades of work etc, then compiled into German Commission E Monographs.
I used translator to access information back then, now, some is no longer accessible. Maybe your library might have a copy of this book.

Not trying to sound "political" but
there was some discrepancy in translation of that book into English language, stating that some information was purposely withheld, or misguided because Big Pharma.
How much truth is in this I'm not sure, but it wouldn't surprise me it it were.
I do believe some books are purposely out of print. Especially In USA and Canada.

Stephen Harrod Buhner is my go-to for herbal knowledge. He was an extraordinary researcher and consolidator of all the available information from scientific, historical and indigenous sources.
As far as practicing any ‘alternative’ health methods for income you will need to love fighting for your right to do so. Invaluable knowledge for your own health though!

I just graduated from Doc Jones' Homegrown Herbalist program. I recommend his program because:
It's a great price for the amount of education.
He uses an approach that enables you to make your own formulas,
He emphasizes plants that grow well at home and in the mountain west region. Local for me.

A smaller, also wonderful class is by Dr. Nicole Apelian. Her basic class is less than $50! It covers more plants from a pacific northwest, rainy, temperate ecosystem.

😁 hope that helps!