EACH YEAR, Americans spend $27 billion on alternative medicine, but Jordan isn’t among those turning a profit. Not only does he not advertise (perhaps because he doesn’t want to draw attention to his lack of a license or medical degree), but he doesn’t charge. "The rule, basically, is you make a donation according to your ability to pay," he explains. Jordan points over to the right of two folding screens, where a broken street sign reading TWO TREES hangs on the wall. Underneath it is a basket used for offerings. Jordan got the idea from Two Trees himself, who left out a coffee can for collection.

"It’s called the Cherokee sliding scale, and you pay according to your perception of the value of the work," he explains. Typically, clients proffer anywhere between $30 and $60. "Sometimes people put in $30, and then three years later I’ll get a check for $200 or $300. Which I understand: at the time [of their initial visit], how do they know how valuable my advice is going to be? Years later, they go, ‘Wow, what a difference this has made. I’m going to write that SOB a check.’ "

But even if clients are broke, Jordan won’t turn them away. "If people come and don’t have any money, that doesn’t change the way I treat them."

Jordan’s earth-medicine consultations and his OrendŽ energy healing practice ("Acupuncture without needles," he explains) are his primary sources of income. Lately, he’s had about one client a day, so rent has been a monthly walk of faith — but Jordan’s not complaining. "Hell, any fool can make a living with a job," he says, elaborating on a quote he attributes to Sun Bear. "But when you take that job, you’re literally going into economic slavery. The Native culture is based on being free. And not free in the modern American sense, but truly free: no boss, no landlord, no government, none of that crap."

He also accepts donations for his earth-medicine class, which takes place in his makeshift office, the second-floor living room of the Cambridge apartment he shares with two housemates. Around the corner is the kitchen, which is also the waiting room. The front door downstairs is unlocked. ("When you go to the doctor’s office, you don’t have to knock on the door, do you?") There are two massage tables pushed together against his office’s far wall and a card table piled with pamphlets — the table is a "sentient being that is fully alive," according to Jordan — that doubles as the healer’s consultation desk.

Forecasters have predicted snow for this afternoon, so just one student is present — a thin, apple-cheeked woman named Lori. Last April, doctors found a nodule on Lori’s pituitary gland, so her massage therapist referred her to Jordan. She started Jordan’s earth-medicine regimen in early July; by October, a follow-up ultrasound revealed that the nodule had already shrunk, so Lori canceled her scheduled surgery.

Lori is in her socks; Jordan’s feet are slipped inside moccasins. Today’s lesson is about water. Water is like ambrosia for Jordan, a sort of corporealized vim. He guzzles three gallons a day; the first time I met him, he quaffed six cups over a span of three and a half hours.

But one liquid Jordan will never drink is milk. "Milk is only for an animal that doesn’t have teeth," he declares. "So whenever I have clients who are big milk consumers, I say, ‘Fine. I’m not going to forbid you milk. But I will give you this: you should only be drinking human milk.’"

Lori laughs, tossing back her wavy mane.

"Why’s that so funny? What is the most logical thing for a human to drink if they want to drink an animal’s milk?" He pauses. "Human milk!"

"Yeah, but after a certain age," Lori says, "we know it doesn’t make sense."

"Well, my momma won’t let me go to the breast anymore, I don’t know about yours," he says, grinning impishly.

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE has become a lot more mainstream in the last few years. In its December 2, 2002, issue, Newsweek ran a cover story focusing on "integrative care" (the overlap of alternative and conventional medicine) and on December 3, Harvard Medical School’s Osher Institute for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies published a study of how known alternative therapies affect cancer patients. But is it becoming more accepted in the conventional-medicine community?

"I don’t know about ‘accepted,’ " says Dr. Anthony D’Amico, a radiation oncologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. "It’s becoming more practiced, that’s for sure."

D’Amico thinks the media are largely responsible for the burgeoning interest in alternative-healing techniques. "See, people read in the lay press that a vitamin or mineral has been shown to improve a person’s vitality and make their immune system stronger," he says. "What happens is that there is an inference there, and it may or may not be true, that if it can help them, it can help me. That’s where the leap of faith that you have to worry about comes into play."

John, a 53-year-old glass blower from Somerville, saw Jordan for bladder cancer and told his physician about the alternative treatments. His doctor wasn’t supportive. "I made an appointment with my doctor and I brought my wife," John says. "Previously, I’d sent my doctor a letter with everything in the regimen I was taking. He brought his assistant in the room and called it ‘snake oil.’"

Even in an "integrative" environment like the Marino Center, where conventional medicine overlaps with alternative therapies, practitioners like Jordan are considered "radical."

"Among the most daring things is to treat tumors and cancers with a radical-natural or supplemental approach," says the Center’s Dr. Pugh. "Most practitioners here are not comfortable with that, but will work with patients in conjunction with conventional therapy to attempt to boost the immune system or alleviate symptoms of treatment of cancer."

Jordan doesn’t view himself as radical. "I’ve had a number of people at my talks, lectures, or even clients say, ‘Boy, Byron, you’re really extreme.’ And I say, ‘No, not at all. I’m sitting solidly in the middle of a 36,000-year-old tradition that has never budged, no matter what political or social force has come along. I’m sitting on the earth with simple things: water, clay, grasses, herbs, things. That’s where I sit.’ "

Some day, Jordan would like to see a worldwide earth-medicine institute. After that, a world free of cancer, free of diabetes, free of arthritis, free of attention-deficit disorder, free of rage. Not a world of Britney Spears. "This is where my thoughts are these days. I don’t think about what’s for dinner tonight."

But first, Jordan has to do some convincing. "I get ridiculed to my face," he says. "Doctors laugh in my face." Does it bother him? "Have you ever had a child or a niece say, ‘Well, you’re just stupid and I hate you’? Does that hurt your feelings? No. I’m the same way. The doctor criticizes me, and I just go, ‘Doctors, poor people. What do they know? If only I could help them.’"

Camille Dodero can be reached at cdodero[a]phx.com.