Alternative Medicine Research Yearbook 2012 : Nova Science Publishers : 9781628080803 : 1628080809 : 01 Jul 2013 : The field of holistic or integrative medicine needs a scientific approach. We need this kind of medicine -- and we even need it to be spiritual to include the depths of human existence -- but we need it to be a little less "cosmic" in order to encompass the whole human being. Many important research questions and challenges, empirical as well as theoretical, demand the attention from medical researchers. The field has been too preoccupied with orthomolecular medicine, and dietary supplements without much scientific foundation. Acupuncture needles and other seemingly effective, but strange elements from the traditional medicines, semi-religious procedures of meditation and healing manipulating "energetic dimensions" like "chakras" and "auras" in symbolic ways, and similar approaches have been in the forefront, but not easily compatible with the basic reason and common sense