You May Already Be Helping People. Now It’s Time to Build the Toolbox.
Maybe you’re already the person people call. Someone has an upset stomach and asks what you know. A friend hears about an herb and sends you a link. Someone brings you a bottle and asks, “Have you ever heard of this?” A family member gets a diagnosis and, after talking with their doctor, calls you because they want to know what else they might investigate.
For generations, people have shared what they’ve learned about caring for themselves and the people they love. Foods. Herbs. Oils. Minerals. Teas. Poultices. Compresses. Bathing. Fasting. Rest. Sunshine. Movement. Nutrition. Traditional remedies. Some of that knowledge proved useful. Some didn’t.
Today, we have something previous generations never had: access to an extraordinary amount of information. Unfortunately, we also have access to an extraordinary amount of misinformation. So the challenge has changed. It isn’t simply: “Do you know something natural for this?” A better question may be: “How do we investigate the possibilities responsibly?”
That’s where the Natural Alternative Specialist Certification Program at St Pauls Free University begins.
ENROLLMENT IS NOW OPEN
10 Live Weekly Classes
Beginning Tuesday, October 6, 2026
6:00 PM Pacific Time
Regular Tuition: $10,000
Early Enrollment Tuition: $6,999
Enroll by September 30, 2026 and save $3,001.
[ LEARN MORE & ENROLL ]
What Is a Natural Alternative Specialist?
A Natural Alternative Specialist is not a replacement for a physician or other licensed healthcare professional. The role is different. A Natural Alternative Specialist is an Investigator, Researcher, and Experimenter who learns how to explore natural approaches to health and wellness thoughtfully, responsibly, and compassionately. And you may already be acting the part.
- Are you the person your family calls when someone asks: “Do you know anything natural for this?”
- Are you continually reading about foods, nutrition, herbs, minerals, traditional remedies, lifestyle approaches, or other possibilities?
- Have you discovered things that made a meaningful difference in your own life?
- Do you find yourself asking why something may be happening, rather than immediately searching for something to make the complaint disappear?
- Do you naturally research several possibilities before deciding which one deserves a closer look?
Then you may already have the heart—and perhaps quite a few of the habits—of a Natural Alternative Specialist.
The certification helps you develop the method, toolbox, professional framework, and boundaries to go with them.
There May Be 200 Ways to Do a Thing.
This is one of the principles you’ll hear throughout the program. Finding something that works doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve discovered the answer. You’ve discovered an answer. One more possibility. One more tool. One of perhaps 200 ways to do the thing.
That’s why this certification isn’t built around allegiance to a particular product, manufacturer, diet, practitioner, healing philosophy, or collection of favorite remedies. Everyone brings something different to the table. And we want you to bring yours.
Your experience matters. But so does your willingness to say: “That’s what worked for me. What might work for you?”
This Isn’t About Memorizing Remedies.
We aren’t interested in graduating students who have memorized: “Take this for that.” Human beings are more complicated than that.
Instead, we’re going to become better investigators.
- What is this person actually experiencing?
- When did it begin?
- What changed?
- What might be contributing to it?
- What has already been tried?
- What does available research tell us?
- What have people traditionally used?
- What other possibilities exist?
- What are the risks, contraindications, or interactions?
- What is realistically affordable and accessible?
- Is the person physically and practically capable of doing what we’re considering?
- What deserves evaluation by an appropriately licensed healthcare professional?
And one question that should never disappear: What does this person actually want? Natural wellness should never become something we impose on somebody else.
A Natural Alternative Specialist learns to offer possibilities without taking away another person’s ownership of their health.
Ten Weeks. Ten Areas of Investigation. One Method You Can Keep Using.
The Natural Alternative Specialist Certification is a 10-week live online program.
We’ll begin with the most important subject of all: How to help.
You’ll explore professional identity and boundaries, asking better questions, investigating alternatives, evaluating claims, listening to the person in front of you, recognizing limitations, and knowing when something is outside your role.
From there, our weekly investigations move through major themes including:
- Root cause, presenting complaints, and the 200 Ways Principle
- The body’s internal environment
- Oxygen, circulation, and cellular support
- Pain, recovery, and the inflammation conversation
- Digestion, elimination, and natural body rhythms
- Parasites, gut imbalances, and unwanted guests
- Natural alternatives hiding in ordinary supermarkets and kitchens
- Food as a foundation: nutrition, fats and oils, processing, eating patterns, and lifestyle
- Putting everything together into responsible Natural Alternative Specialist practice
Each week gives us a particular problem to investigate and introduces natural approaches worth knowing about. But no featured approach is sacred to the NAS Method.
We will also examine multiple additional alternatives that might be equally appropriate—or considerably more appropriate—for a particular person. Because the “best” idea isn’t very useful if the person cannot afford it, cannot access it, cannot physically do it, or simply will not do it.
Natural Alternative Specialists recalibrate.
We keep investigating until we find possibilities that make sense for the actual human being we’re trying to help.
READY TO BUILD YOUR TOOLBOX?
If you’ve been doing some version of this informally for years, certification can give structure and professional identity to what you’ve already been developing. If you’re newer to natural alternatives, that’s okay too.
You don’t need to arrive knowing everything. You need curiosity, compassion, and a willingness to investigate.
[ EXPLORE THE CERTIFICATION & ENROLL ]
Early Enrollment Tuition: $6,999 through September 30, 2026
Regular Tuition: $10,000
Old Knowledge. New Research. Open Minds.
We’ll look backward as well as forward. Some remarkably ordinary substances found in kitchens, grocery stores, gardens, and medicine cabinets have histories of traditional use extending across generations. We’ll investigate those traditions.
We’ll also examine contemporary natural-health practices, available research, field and practitioner observations, personal experiences, competing viewpoints, and ideas that remain controversial.
Students aren’t required to believe everything they encounter. In fact, we hope they won’t.
Curiosity is more useful than unquestioning belief.
- Learn.
- Ask questions.
- Investigate.
- Compare.
- Observe.
- Reconsider.
- And remain willing to change your mind when better information arrives.
That’s not inconsistency. That’s investigation.
Helping Without Judging
People make different health decisions. Some are comfortable with conventional medicine. Some are skeptical of it. Many use conventional and complementary approaches together.
Our role isn’t to ridicule any of them. It is to meet people where they are, respect their autonomy, share information when invited, help them investigate possibilities, recognize when something exceeds our scope, and encourage appropriate professional evaluation when warranted.
Sometimes the most valuable thing we can give another person isn’t a remedy. It’s someone willing to listen.
Live Classes Are Where This Gets Interesting.
The certification consists of 10 live online classes, meeting Tuesday evenings at 6:00 PM Pacific Time, beginning October 6 and concluding December 8, 2026.
And these aren’t intended to feel like ten prerecorded lectures with somebody pressing Play. Students bring their own knowledge into the room.
- Someone may have twenty years of experience with something another student has never encountered.
- Someone may ask a question nobody else thought to ask.
- Someone may challenge an assumption.
- Someone may introduce an herb, product, technique, tradition, practitioner, device, or idea that even your instructor hasn’t investigated.
Excellent. That’s when we get to say: “I don’t know. Let’s investigate.”
The curriculum gives us somewhere to start. The people in the room make the class come alive.
And If You Have to Miss a Class?
You’re covered. Every live class is recorded, and the recording will remain available inside your student dashboard.
If work, family, travel, illness, or life causes you to miss a Tuesday, you can make up the session. You can also return to previous recordings when you want to review something again. But whenever you possibly can: Come live.
The questions, discussions, different experiences, and spontaneous investigations may become some of the most valuable parts of your training.
Meet Your Instructor
The Natural Alternative Specialist Certification is taught by David M. Masters, the program’s new instructor at St Pauls Free University.
David brings decades of experience in education, coaching, research, personal development, ministry, and natural-alternative investigation to the classroom. But don’t expect him to have all the answers. That’s rather the point.
The instructor’s job isn’t to turn students into copies of himself. It’s to help develop better Investigators, Researchers, and Experimenters.
So when somebody brings something into class that none of us knows much about, we have somewhere to begin: Let’s investigate.
Your Certification Means Something.
Students who satisfactorily complete the program receive certification from St Pauls Free University and may identify themselves as: Certified Natural Alternative Specialists
Certification gives graduates a professional framework for sharing natural-alternative information, education, research, options, lifestyle support, and informed discussion while observing the standards and ethical boundaries applicable to active Natural Alternative Specialists. It is not a license to practice medicine.
Natural Alternative Specialists do not diagnose disease, prescribe or discontinue prescription medications, or represent themselves as licensed healthcare practitioners unless they separately hold the appropriate professional credentials.
Professional freedom requires professional responsibility. That’s part of what makes the credential worth having.
Your First Materials Arrive Before Class Begins.
Early enrollment isn’t simply about receiving a lower tuition rate. After the September 30 enrollment deadline, Welcome Packs will be sent to enrolled students.
You’ll have time before our first live class to review your introductory materials, familiarize yourself with the program, and prepare your 3-ring Natural Alternative Specialist Field Binder for the weekly course materials, investigations, observations, and notes you’ll accumulate along the way.
Then we’ll meet live on: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 6:00 PM Pacific Time And start investigating.
International Students Are Welcome.
Because the program is conducted online, students outside the United States are welcome to enroll.
Live classes are scheduled for 6:00 PM Pacific Time in the United States. International students should confirm the corresponding local time for each class date.
And remember: every session remains available in your student dashboard if the live time is impractical where you live.
You May Already Have the Heart of a Natural Alternative Specialist.
Now you can build the professional toolbox to go with it. You don’t need to know every herb. Every nutrient. Every product. Every study. Every tradition. Or every one of the 200 ways.
You need to know how to:
- Listen.
- Ask.
- Investigate.
- Offer.
- Protect.
- Respect.
- Observe.
- Adjust.
And then keep learning. Because there will always be another possibility. Another person’s story. Another piece of research. Another question. And probably another way to do the thing.
NATURAL ALTERNATIVE SPECIALIST CERTIFICATION
10 Live Weekly Classes
October 6 – December 8, 2026
Tuesdays • 6:00 PM Pacific Time
Live Online + Student Dashboard & Recordings
International Students Welcome
Regular Tuition: $10,000
Early Enrollment Tuition: $6,999
Enroll by September 30, 2026 and save $3,001.
[ LEARN MORE & ENROLL NOW ]
Natural Alternative Specialist Certification is an educational credential and is not a license to practice medicine or another regulated healthcare profession. Graduates are responsible for operating within applicable laws, their individual professional credentials, and the standards and scope of active Natural Alternative Specialist practice.
