 began to suffer from headaches followed by vomiting. A CAT scan showed a brain
tumor, and the patient was taken to Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, for brain surgery.
The surgeon removed what he could, but found that some of the tumor was too close to a major
blood vessel and could only be cauterized.
Subsequently N.K. had annual checkups. When she turned 13, an MRI (Magnetic Resonance
Imaging) showed a recurrence. The doctor said that at this early stage he could not operate, but
N.K.’s mother felt unable to just sit by and wait for her daughter’s brain tumor to grow. She found
out about the Gerson treatment and in 1990 the patient and her mother came to the Mexican
hospital. Due to the demanding routine of the Gerson Therapy with the need for hourly juices,
N.K. could not go to school, so her mother home schooled her. Also, doing her enemas, the patient
did a great deal of reading. First she read the classics, then she studied mathematics, and finally
Copyright © Charlotte Gerson, 2007.  All rights reserved.
This material may not be reproduced in any medium, print or electronic without prior written permission from the author.Page 203Healing the Gerson Way—Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases
www.thegersonway.comphilosophy. By the time she took her SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), she was not only free from
her tumor, but also scored extremely high on her test.
When her surgeon examined her new X-rays, he could not understand how it was possible for
N.K. to have no more malignancy, since he knew that he had left some tumor tissue in place at the
time of her operation. Her fine motor skills were also perfectly restored, so much so that she was
even able to play the violin.
Last report: N.K. continues fit and well; at 26 she is married and has a family. She graduated
from college “Magna cum Laude.”
Nicotine Addiction
A.C.  started to smoke cigarettes aged 17. She looked barely fifteen and hoped that smoking
would make her look more grown-up. At first she hated the smell and taste of cigarettes, but
quickly got hooked on them, and was still smoking 35 years later, when she went down with
malignant melanoma.
When she discovered the Gerson Therapy and decided to go to the Mexican Gerson Hospital,
her main worry was the need to manage without smoking once she got there. It had been made
clear to her that if she tried to smoke just one cigarette, she would be sent home at once. Having
tried, and failed, to stop smoking more times than she cared to remember, A.C. felt very anxious
indeed.
As soon as she arrived at the hospital, she found herself embroiled in the full intensive
program—one juice after another, enema training, meals, instructions, meeting other patients took
up every waking minute. What with all this activity, it took A.C. almost two whole days to realize
that she had neither smoked nor missed her lifetime habit. The real shock came a few hours later,
when in the garden of the hospital she met a visitor who was smoking. To her amazement A.C.
found the smoke highly offensive and quickly walked past the smoker. She suffered no serious
withdrawal symptoms, but it took several weeks for the extremely unpleasant accumulated
residue of her smoking years to evaporate through her skin and hair. She never looked back,
and—incidentally—also recovered from her melanoma.
Esophageal Cancer
It is important to remember that beside the most common malignancies, namely cancer of the
breast, prostate and colon, which respond so well to the Gerson Therapy, the same treatment is
just as effective in healing rare cancers. To illustrate this, we present the case history of K.G.
Born in 1953, this man was a taxidermist living in Arizona. He was health-conscious and
adopted a careful lifestyle: he didn’t smoke or use drugs and only occasionally drank a glass of
Copyright © Charlotte Gerson, 2007.  All rights reserved.
This material may not be reproduced in any medium, print or electronic without prior written permission from the author.Page 204Healing the Gerson Way—Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases
www.thegersonway.comwine—but, as he himself put it, his diet consisted of “purely junk and convenience foods”! If he
ate a whole wheat bread sandwich, he felt he was on a “health kick,” and didn’t touch salads,
which he dismissed as rabbit food. His annual intake of fruit consisted of perhaps four apples
and two to four oranges. To make things worse, he didn’t realize the devastating effects of the
materials he used daily in his taxidermist business:: formaldehyde, lacquer thinner, fiberglass,
urethane foam, paints, and others.
Slowly over the years he became aware of some irritation in his throat. In due course
swallowing became difficult and his breathing was heavy. Aged 37, he consulted a doctor, and
the tests resulted in a diagnosis of esophageal cancer. K.G. was reluctant to consider the proposed
treatment, especially in view of the extremely low rate of recoveries, and searched for an
alternative, which turned out to be the Gerson Therapy. He embarked on it and now admits that it
had been a real struggle to overcome his aversion to the coffee enemas, but “… once I experienced
one, I could feel a difference, and realized their importance.”  The patient experienced very long
healing reactions, and was aware of the tumor “rotting in my throat with a terrible smell.” After
some two and a half months, K.G. reports, he felt the remaining tumor falling down his throat into
his stomach. This made him terribly sick for a few days, but finally he expelled all the toxins and
made a full recovery.
He resumed his professional work, but has become extremely careful in the handling of the
chemicals involved, and remains well some 15 years after his recovery.
A Whole Family Recovers: Breast and Prostate Cancer, and Pleurisy
This report illustrates the effectiveness of the Gerson treatment in healing the different
diseases suffered by the members of one family.
First we saw the mother, S.H., whose mammogram at the age of 53 showed some suspicious
details. The surgeon removed two lumps from her breast; they were found to be malignant. He
suggested that S.H. should have a mastectomy, possibly followed by radiation, but admitted that
the latter would leave her lungs permanently burned, and would also soften and damage her
bones. The patient opted for a radical mastectomy, but the day before the surgery she decided to
go to Mexico for the Gerson treatment. She started the therapy in February of 1995, had no other
treatment of any kind, recovered fully and remains well.
S.H.’s daughter T. had suffered from pleurisy since the age of three. Her condition worsened,
and by the age of 37, as the mother of two children, she was seriously ill—could hardly breathe
and was unable to sit, lie down or sleep, even in a hospital bed. At the time her mother, S.H., was
in the 14th month of her Gerson Therapy. She travelled from California to her daughter’s home in
Wyoming, with one suitcase full of organic fruit and vegetables, and another one containing her
clothes.
Copyright © Charlotte Gerson, 2007.  All rights reserved.
This material may not be reproduced in any medium, print or electronic without prior written permission from the author.Page 205Healing the Gerson Way—Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases
www.thegersonway.comS.H. reports that already after her first glass of carrot juice her daughter T. started to feel
better. She kept improving rapidly and after three weeks was walking, sleeping and recovering,
until eventually she cleared the long-standing pleurisy completely for the first time in her life. She
is now fully well and training to become a massage therapist.
Some years after the recovery of mother and daughter, S.’s husband C. was found to have a
PSA (prostate specific antigen) of around 14 to 16; the normal level is 1 or below. In July of 2003
a biopsy proved that C. had prostate cancer. This was remarkable, since for years he had been
eating the same diet that had cured his wife, S. However, C. had heard a lot of commercial hype
about soy products and their high protein content, and, thinking he needed more protein, added a
number of soy products to his food intake. He also took a fairly large amount of “aminos,” which
are high in sodium as well as being derived from soy. When C. stopped the soy and the aminos
and went on the full Gerson Therapy, he, too, recovered, and has remained well and active for
over four years.
Ewing’s Sarcoma
In June of 1993, T.I., an eight-year-old boy, was brought to the Mexican Gerson hospital
from Hungary. In March of 1992 he had been diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, an endothelial
myeloma forming tumors on the long bones, for which medical texts give a very poor prognosis.
In Hungary he had been treated with chemotherapy, but the cancer had spread from his pelvis
into the soft tissues of his abdomen. He arrived at the hospital looking pale


 does not treat any underlying cause of a thyroid illness. I believe that radioactive iodine
should be the last choice in treating any thyroid disorder.
Betty was given an iodine-loading test with 50mg of iodine/iodide (Iodoral
®
). Her initial iodine-loading test showed a
very low iodine excretion with a 35% excretion measured (normal >90%). Betty’s initial thyroid ultrasound showed an
enlarged thyroid gland with a total volume of 13.1ml. She also had large nodules in both the right and left lobes of the
thyroid gland.
Betty was placed on 50mg/day of iodine/iodide (Iodoral
®
). Betty was also treated with vitamin C, unrefined sea salt
(Celtic Sea Salt
®
) and magnesium. The vitamin C can function as an antioxidant and can help support the body’s
detoxification pathways. Celtic Sea Salt
®
 can supply the body with chloride which aids in detoxifying toxic halides
(bromide and fluoride). Celtic Sea Salt
®
 is also a good source of minerals. Magnesium is a relaxing agent for the body
and can help prevent hyperthyroid symptoms caused by a detoxification of toxic halides.
After two months of taking 50mg/day of iodine/iodide (Iodoral
®
), Betty felt much better. Her energy improved and
she felt that her brain fog had resolved. A repeat thyroid ultrasound showed the size of the thyroid gland decreased to
10.3ml—a 22% decline. In addition, all of the nodules were noted to be smaller from the previous ultrasound. Betty’s
thyroid levels were unchanged from taking 50mg of iodine.
Update on Betty’s case: Betty is still taking iodine and still doing well. On physical exam, her thyroid continues to
decrease in size.
New (5
th
 Edition) update on Betty’s case: Betty continues to supplement with iodine. Betty’s follow-up thyroid
ultrasound is now read as normal. When I told her I was writing a new edition to this book, she said, “Make sure you put
in there how much better I am feeling.”
Before the usage of iodine/iodide in milligram doses, it was rare to see thyroid nodules and a hypertrophied thyroid gland
shrink in size. Now it is common in my practice. Only with the proper dose of iodine/iodide (in mg doses) have I found thyroid
nodules to recede.David is a 48-year-old health club owner. David was diagnosed with thyroid cancer ten years ago and had a
thyroidectomy followed by chemotherapy. He was placed on Synthroid
®
 and had his dose of Synthroid
®
 titrated until his
thyroid levels showed a euthyroid state. However, after the surgery, David gained 50 pounds of weight and never felt the
same. “I exercised all the time and I couldn’t lose an ounce. It did not matter whether I ate or not. I kept telling my
doctors that I did not feel right—I was always tired and I couldn’t think straight,” he said. When I saw David, his
physical exam showed a slight edematous feeling around the lower neck in the area of his thyroidectomy. David claimed,
“I always told my doctor that I felt something around my neck. They kept telling me that nothing was there since I had
my thyroid removed.” An iodine-loading test showed David was extremely low in iodine—he had one of the lowest
loading tests that I have seen--0.3% excretion (normal >90%). David was also found to be excreting large amounts of
the toxic halide bromide (see figure on next page). Bromide is a toxic element and no bromide should be present in the
body. David was started on
50mg of iodine/iodide (Iodoral
®
), and his iodine and bromide levels were reevaluated at 1
day and 30 days. His results are seen in the figure below. Due to the large amounts of bromide, David was treated with a
holistic regimen designed to support his detoxification pathways. This included vitamin C, unrefined salt (Celtic Sea
Salt
®
),
and liver support. Two months later he reported, “My brain fog cleared and I began to lose weight for the first
time since the surgery. It is a miracle.” Also, the edema around the lower neck resolved and David no longer felt as if his
neck was being squeezed.

Case History David: Iodide/Bromide Levels Before and After Iodine Supplementation

Update on David’s case: David is still taking iodine. His bromide levels have now started to decline. All swelling of
the thyroid gland is gone.
New (5
th
 Edition) update on David’s case: David continues to feel well. He recently stated at a routine office visit, “I
am still amazed at how much better I feel with iodine. I can’t understand why more doctors aren’t prescribing it.”
Iodine deficiency is associated with hypertrophy of the thyroid gland as well as hyperplasia of the thyroid gland. Oftentimes,
when there is iodine deficiency present, the physical exam will reveal an edematous feeling in the thyroid area of the neck, often
like there are “cotton balls” surrounding the thyroid gland. Patients will often report to me that they have a swollen feeling of the
thyroid gland. Most times, when iodine deficiency is rectified, the edematous feeling will resolve. The treatment for thyroid cancer
must include identifying and treating the underlying cause(s) of the illness. The conventional approach to thyroid cancer relies on
the use of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. However, thyroid cancer does not develop because of a deficiency of thyroid
surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. A treatment can only be effective if it treats the underlying cause of the condition. Research
has shown that iodine can induce apoptosis (programmed cell death) of thyroid cancer cells.
1
As stated previously, there is no doubt that iodine deficiency plays a large role in the development of thyroid cancer (as well
as other cancers). Only with rectifying iodine deficiency, coupled with a comprehensive treatment plan that emphasizes
optimizing
the function of the immune system, will people be able to prevent and overcome these serious disorders.
Janice, a 52-year-old nurse (my nurse) was complaining of intermittent fatigue and muscle aches. At the beginning of
our work day, I could tell how Janice was feeling by the way she walked down the hall. If she was feeling well, she had a
bounce in her step. If she was feeling down, she would have a slight slouch to her body and slowness in her step. Usually
by the end of a busy day, Janice would be extremely fatigued and complain of muscle and joint pain. “Sometimes my feet
and legs would just be killing me by the end of the day,” she said. Janice was very sensitive to all medications and
supplements. She frequently took children’s doses of items because she had such a sensitive system. She did not want to
do an iodine loading test because she feared taking the loading dose of iodine—50mg. I elected to therapeutically treather with 12.5mg of iodine/iodide (Iodoral
®
). Immediately, she felt better. “All of my pain was gone in three days. After
two weeks, my energy zoomed higher. I was no longer aching at the end of the work day; I felt great,” she claimed. After
four weeks of taking 12.5mg Iodoral
®
/day, she developed mild palpitations. I told her to stop the iodine and the
palpitations subsided one day later. Janice was instructed to take 12.5mg Iodoral
®
 three days per week. In addition, she
was placed on a vitamin and mineral regimen. Janice did well for the next five months until one day at
work I saw her
limping down the hall. I asked her why she was limping and she told me, “I feel terrible. Everything aches and my feet
are killing me.” When I asked her if she was taking the iodine, she told me that she quit it one week ago. Incredulously, I
asked her “why?” She told me that she thought she had enough in her body. After a few terse comments, I instructed her
to resume the iodine dose. By the time Janice had taken her third iodine dose, all of her symptoms again resolved.
Update on Janice’s case: Janice never misses an iodine dose now. “I learned my lesson. It truly made a huge
difference in my life. I know I would not feel well without it,” she said.
Shirley, at 69-years-old, is very sensitive to medications and supplements. She also happens to be my mother-in-law.
Shirley was on 6.25mg/day of iodine/iodide (Iodoral
®
) to help treat many hypothyroid symptoms including cold
extremities, hair loss, dry skin, and fatigue. All of her symptoms improved significantly with the iodine supplementation.
Furthermore, she was able to stop taking thyroid hormone due to the positive effects of the iodine. Approximately four
months after starting the iodine regimen, Shirley developed palpitations. Now, having your mother-in-law develop
palpitations is not a good thing. The palpitations ceased after two days without


	even	a
good	survey	like	Susan	Blackmore,
Consciousness
:
An	Introduction
	(Oxford
University	Press,	2004),	which	does	a	thorough	job	covering	the	many
philosophical	questions	raised	by	current	theories.	The	most	praised	authors
in	the	field	seem	to	be	skeptics	who	believe	that	mind	is	actually	an	illusion
created	by	neural	activity	and	outmoded	thinking	about	the	brain.	See	Daniel
Dennett,
Consciousness	Explained
	(Back	Bay	Books,	1992),	which	argues
aggressively	for	the	proposition	that	consciousness	is	a	materialistic
phenomenon	and	nothing	more.	Therefore,	human	consciousness	could	(and
one	day	will)	be	duplicated	by	a	computer.
For	a	more	pluralistic,	open-minded	discussion,	see	Susan	Blackmore,
editor,
Conversations	on	Consciousness:	What	the	Best	Minds	Think	About
the	Brain,	Free	Will,	and	What	It	Means	to	Be	Human
	(Oxford	University
Press,	2006),	in	which	twenty-one	thinkers	talk	in	conversational	interviews
about	the	whole	problem	of	relating	mind	and	brain.	Finally,	for	a	perspective
that	is	more	neurological,	I	read	the	fascinating	speculations	of	Humberto	R.
Maturana	and	Francisco	J.	Varela,
The	Tree	of	Knowledge:	The	Biological
Roots	of	Human	Understanding
	(Shambhala,	1998),	which	attempts	an	all-
inclusive	theory	that	follows	the	evolution	of	mind	from	a	basis	in	organic
chemicals.	It	is	up	to	each	reader	to	decide	if	Vedanta,	whose	own	all-
inclusive	theory	begins	with	consciousness	instead	of	chemicals,	stands	up	to
modern	skepticism	as	I	have	claimed.
The	discussion	of	the	five	Koshas	is	my	own	synthesis	of	traditional	Vedic
ideas.	Those	ideas	are	easy	to	explore	online	at	Web	sites	such	as
http://swamij.com/koshas.htm
.
Chapter	11:	Guides	and	Messengers
The	literature	on	angels	is	vast,	but	I	found	that	what	I	wanted	to	say	did	not
involve	the	many	historical	surveys	describing	how	angels	appear	in	various
world	religions.	However,	there	are	many	fascinating	accounts	from	people
who	have	learned	to	cooperate	with	the	devas,
creative
	agents	that	are	the
Indian	parallel	of	angels.	These	are	all	New	Age	books	that	center	on
Findhorn,	a	famous	Scottish	community	that	claimed	to	use	devas	to	growcrops	on	barren	soil,	among	other	remarkable	things.	See	Dorothy	MacLean,
To	Hear	the	Angels	Sing:	An	Odyssey	of	Co-Creation	with	the	Devic	Kingdom
(Lindisfarne	Books,	1994)	and	Machaelle	Small	Wright,
Behaving	As	if	the
God	in	All	Life	Mattered
	(Perelandra,	1997)	for	two	sympathetic	stories	of
women	who	suddenly	found	that	they	could	talk	to	devas	and	use	them	to
manifest	desires.	Both	are	at	polar	opposites	to	skepticism	and	materialism.
Chapter	12:	The	Dream	Continues
The	literature	on	reincarnation	is	quite	unwieldy	since	it	spans	every	religion
and	spiritual	movement.	The	main	source	of	popular	belief	in	reincarnation	is
probably	Theosophy,	a	movement	that	grew	out	of	nineteenth-century
spiritualism	but	also	incorporated	a	broad	range	of	ideas	from	India.	See
James	S.	Perkins,
Experiencing	Reincarnation
	(Theosophical	Publishing
House,	1977),	for	a	readable	introduction.	For	me	personally,	it	was
fascinating	to	discover	how	many	spiritual	notions	I	absorbed	as	a	child	at
home	have	been	adopted	by	the	Theosophists,	and	the	New	Age	in	general.
For	the	scientific	proof	of	reincarnation,	I	am	indebted	to	an	excellent
survey	article,	“Death,	Rebirth,	and	Everything	in	Between:	A	Scientific	and
Philosophical	Exploration,”	by	Carter	Phipps,	in	the	journal
What	Is
Enlightenment?
	(Issue	32,	March-May	2006,	pp.	60–90).	The	Web	address	is
http://www.wie.org/
,	where	subscribers	can	read	the	entire	article.
This	led	me	to	the	important	research	by	the	University	of	Virginia
psychiatrist	Ian	Stevenson	on	children	who	claim	to	remember	past	lives.	His
Web	site	is
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/
.
On	the	same	topic	an	invaluable	book	is	Carol	Bowman,
Children’s	Past
Lives:	How	Past	Life	Memories	Affect	Your	Child
	(Bantam,	1998),
in
	which	a
mother	finds	that	her	children’s	irrational	fears	of	loud	noises	and	house	fires
is	cured	by	past-life	regression,	leading	her	to	explore	the	field	in	depth.	A
Web	site	devoted	to	regressing	children	to	their	past	lives	is
http://www.childpastlives.org/
.
T
EXT	NOTES:
pp.	173–74
	I	first	became	aware	of	the	boy	who	remembered	dying	in	a	World
War	II	air	battle	from	an	ABC	News	report:
http://www.reversespins.com/proofofreincarnation.html
.
pp.	174–76
	et	passim	The	anecdotes	of	children	who	remember	their	past
lives,	mostly	derived	from	Ian	Stevenson’s	database,	are	recounted	in
Phipps,	pp.	63–70	(see	above).
p.	175
	The	quotes	from	children	reported	by	their	parents	is	from	Ian
Stevenson’s	 Web	 site,http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/
.
p.	176
	The	source	of	out-of-body	research	at	the	Monroe	Institute	can	be
browsed	at
http://www.monroeinstitute.org/
.	Another	good	article,	linking
out-of-body	experiences	and	NDEs,	can	be	found	online	at
http://www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/sci-docs/ctt97-ssooo.html
.
Chapter	13:	Is	Akasha	Real?
I	had	already	started	writing	about	Akasha	before	discovering	Ervin	Laszlo’s
Science	and	the	Akashic	Field:	An	Integral	Theory	of	Everything
	(Inner
Traditions,	2004),	the	most	wide-ranging	argument	for	incorporating
consciousness	and	science.	Since	my	topic	was	the	afterlife,	I	wasn’t	able	to
include	the	dozen	or	more	mysteries,	ranging	from	advanced	quantum	theory,
cosmology,	biology,	and	neuroscience,	that	according	to	Laszlo	will	never	be
solved	until	consciousness	is	taken	into	account.	Readers	who	want	to
investigate	these	prevailing	enigmas	should	start	here.
Laszlo	discusses	the	Zero	Point	Field,	but	there	is	a	complete	and	very
readable	book	devoted	to	it—see	Lynne	McTaggart,
The	Field:	The	Quest	for
the	Secret	Force	of	the	Universe
	(Harper	Perennial,	2002),	which	describes
many	experiments	and	gives	detailed	anecdotes	of	various	discoveries,	in
contrast	to	Laszlo’s	method,	which	is	to	outline	and	survey	prevailing	theories
with	a	minimum	of	narrative.
T
EXT	NOTES:
pp.	202–204
	Helmut	Schmidt’s	experiments,	followed	by	the	Jahn	team	at
Princeton,	are	recounted	in	McTaggart,
The	Field
,


 a foot. Now
drag your back foot in and start to transfer your weight fully onto
your right foot. Pause. On your inhale, begin to straighten your
right leg and lift your left leg off the ﬂoor, pressing through the
heel of the left foot as if you were pushing it into a wall, so that the
leg is straight and strong. Stack your left rib cage on top of yourright rib cage. Your left shoulder should align with the top of your
right shoulder. Once you feel steady, you can extend your left arm
toward the ceiling and let your gaze follow.
Benefits:  Physically, this pose strengthens the ankles, the thighs,
the buttocks, the abdomen, and the spine. It stretches the groins,
the hamstrings and the calves, the shoulders, the chest, and the
spine.
Energetically, Half Moon pose improves balance, focus,
concentration, and coordination. It activates the ﬁrst, second, and
sixth chakras.
Engage slight mula bandha and uddiyana bandha to help lift
apana vayu. Engage slight jalandhara bandha to encourage energy
movement to the crown. Stimulates prana and udana vayu.
Therapeutic applications:  Can relieve lower back pain when
practiced against the wall, especially for pregnant women in their
second and third trimester.
Helpful tips: If balance is an issue, practice this pose with your
back against the wall. You can also start with the top hand on the
top hip and keep your gaze down toward the ﬂoor to maintain
steadiness. If your hamstrings are tight, place a block underneath
your bottom hand. As you did in the Triangle pose, ﬁx your gaze
forward or down toward the front foot if you have any neck
sensitivity.
OceanofPDF.comLIZARD POSE: UTTHAN PRISTHANA
Overview:  Lizard pose is one of the most effective poses to
open the hips. By targeting the three main muscles of the hips—the
hip ﬂexors, the gluteal muscles, and the groins—it facilitates a
profound release of the whole pelvic region on both a physical and
an energetic level. This pose helps us to move through our
emotions with compassion and courage.
How-to:  From Low Lunge, lower your back knee down onto the
ﬂoor or onto a blanket for support. Walk your right foot toward
the right edge of your mat and point the toes out slightly toward
the corner. Be sure to keep the right knee directly over the right
ankle. Place your hands on the inside of the right foot. Either stay
here or lower your elbows to the ﬂoor for a deeper stretch. You can
keep the back knee down for a more passive stretch or lift the back
knee off the ﬂoor for a more active version of the pose.
Benefits:  Physically, this pose opens the quadriceps, the hip
ﬂexors, the hamstrings, the groins, and the gluteal muscles. Itstrengthens the quadriceps and the lower abdominal muscles. It
also helps to open the shoulders and the chest.
Energetically, Lizard pose promotes our ability to be ﬂexible—
not just in our bodies but in our lives. This pose works on the
second chakra, which is the element of water, and water governs
our polarities. It is responsible for our ability to be ﬂuid in life and
to “go with the ﬂow,” so this shape opens that part of our
consciousness. The hips also tend to hold a lot of unprocessed
emotions; therefore, Lizard pose helps to release memories,
feelings, and beliefs that get lodged in this area and that keep us
from recognizing our essential nature.
Engage mula bandha to help reverse apana vayu. Engage
vajroli mudra. Stimulates vyana vayu.
Therapeutic applications:  Can help relieve lower back pain,
increase fertility, and alleviate menstrual discomfort. Lizard pose is
also helpful for women who are pregnant.
Helpful tips: Keep the back knee on the ﬂoor for a more
receptive version of this pose. If your hips are tight, place a block
underneath each forearm, so you maintain space in the chest and
shoulders.
OceanofPDF.comGARLAND POSE: MALASANA
Overview:  This hip opener can either be restful or highly
challenging depending on your anatomy. The pose gets its name
from the small round gems that make up a mala, a sacred string of
beads used for chanting or praying in India. Creating this shape
with our own body reminds us that asana is its own form of prayer.
How-to:  From Mountain pose, take your legs as wide as your
mat or slightly wider than the distance of your hips. Bend at your
knees and begin to lower your sit bones down toward the ﬂoor. If
your heels start to lift off the ﬂoor, pause and breathe there. Bring
your palms together to touch. If your knees are completely bent,
take your elbows to your inner thighs to help open the hips and
press the palms of your hands ﬁrmly together to help broaden
across the sternum.Benefits:  Physically, Garland pose stretches the Achilles tendon,
the groins, the gluteal muscles, and the torso. It also helps to open
the chest and shoulders.
Energetically, Garland pose activates the ﬁrst and second
chakras and can be speciﬁcally helpful in stimulating sexual
energy.
Engage a slight mula bandha to help balance that downward
energy with an upward lift of the spine. There is a slight jalandhara
bandha to keep the energy line from base to midbrain. Garland
pose helps facilitate the movement of apana to ease elimination.
Therapeutic applications:  Aids in digestion, relieves lower back
pain, and is excellent for pregnant women to help with childbirth.
Helpful tips: If your ankle ﬂexion is limited, place a folded
blanket underneath your heels. If your knees cannot come into full
ﬂexion, place a block or two blocks underneath your sit bones.
Place a block or a thick book between the palms to help broaden
across the collarbones and draw the shoulder blades toward one
another. If you have any knee or hip injuries, try this pose on your
back with your hips close to a wall, your knees bent, your legs wide
apart, and your feet pressing into the wall.
OceanofPDF.comSTANDING FORWARD BENDS
Standing forward bends are extremely useful both for
increasing our physical range and decreasing our mental
chatter. Anatomically, they open the hamstring muscles,
which are the group of muscles responsible for much of
our daily activities, such as walking, running, and climbing
stairs. Energetically, the backs of the legs are where we
store our unconscious patterning, the limiting beliefs and
false narratives that we acquire from a very young age.
Forward bends also encourage a deep sense of calm and
letting go by gently lifting the diaphragm and facilitating
the exhalation. Lastly, standing forward bends are a great
lesson in the law of least effort. The more you soften in
almost all these postures, the easier it is to come into the
pose.
OceanofPDF.comWIDE-LEGGED FORWARD BEND, VARIATION A: PRASARITA
PADDOTTANASANA
Overview:  Wide-Legged Forward Bend A is an accessible yet
profound way to stretch the hamstrings and maintain a sense of
balance at your base. The symmetry and wide stance of the legs
make this pose friendlier for those with tight hamstrings.
How-to:  From Mountain pose, step or jump your legs wide to
about a leg’s distance apart. Keep all ten toes pointing forward and
align the outer edges of your feet with the edges of the mat. Place
your hands on your hips. Firm your quadriceps by suctioning the
ﬂoor up through the soles of your feet. Inhale and lift your sternum
toward the ceiling, keeping your lower belly engaged. As you
exhale, hinge at your hips, and lower the torso down toward the
ﬂoor. If your hands reach the mat, walk the ﬁngertips back to line
up with the toe tips. Spread your ﬁngers wide and place the palms
of the hands ﬂat on the ﬂoor. Bend your elbows straight back
toward the wall behind you and allow the crown of the head tomove toward the mat. If the hands don’t touch the ﬂoor, place a
block underneath each hand.
Benefits:  Physically, this pose stretches the hamstrings and the
back. It strengthens the ankles and the front of the legs. It creates
traction through the spine and can help to release the neck. It also
stimulates the digestive process by directing circulation to the
abdominal organs.
Energetically, Wide-Legged Forward Bend A helps unlock the
unconscious, limiting beliefs stored in the backs of the legs. It
helps relieve anxiety and frees up the exhalation, encouraging a
sense of letting go. This pose can also shift our mental outlook,
and it works on the ﬁrst, sixth, and seventh chakras.
Engage uddiyana and jalandhara bandha


deductable
contribution to his "The Life Science" foundation.  We supported Dr. Bass by creating this website.
Natural Hygiene Network, Houston - http://free.freespeech.org/nhn
ARTICLES

www.drbass.com/firstfast.html
My First Water Fast

"Our parents had passed away and I was able to do pretty much as I pleased.... After a few hours
of shivering from the cold winds blowing in on my wet body, sure enough within a few hours, I
developed chills, followed by a fever..."

From 1936 to 1939 a friend of mine who had been diagnosed as having heart disease had been staying home and
avoiding work. Fearful of straining his hea rt.
In 1939 he visited a Naturopath who told him that his diagnosis was wrong, that the pain he experienced was due to
gas-pressure against the heart from faulty diet.
The doctor put him on an exclusive orange juice diet for 10 days which resulted in a cur e of his condition and the end
of his invalidism.

I asked my friend to get the name of the doctor who wrote on this subject of Natural Hygiene from this Naturopath,
and the names he recommended were Wm. Howard Hay and Rasmus Alsaker.
I immediately went to  the N.Y. Public Library reading room on 42nd Street, N.Y.C., and read all of their books.
These books referred to about 6 doctors who practiced natural healing and drugless medicine.
While reading the writings of Dr. John H. Tilden, one of 6 doctors, I was startled by his statement that all colds, fevers
and influenzas were nature's attempt to eliminate toxins and free the body of so -called disease.
Could this really be true, I pondered? If so, this radical and shocking fact changed the whole face of dis ease as a
beneficent attempt of Nature to take care of her children and protect them from harm, as opposed to the idea that
these illnesses were caused by bacteria and microorganisms.

I went home that day determined to find out if this was true.
I was 19 years old at the time, living with a sister and 2 younger brothers (our parents had passed away) and was
able to do pretty much as I pleased.
I devised an experiment to test this theory.
It was winter at the time. One night I took a hot bath, opened the wi ndows of my private bedroom wide and laid my
wet body on a plastic waterproof cover I had put over the bed. I was trying to catch a cold or flu, after which I would go
on a water fast to see if it worked as a quick healing and cleansing agent, as used by D r. Tilden in his sanitarium.

After a few hours of shivering from the cold winds blowing in on my wet body, sure enough within a few hours, I
developed chills, followed by a fever, great weakness and prostration.
I stayed in bed 3 days and nights, sleeping  constantly and had no foods or liquids, after which my strength returned
and I felt better than I ever did before. I had lost 10 lbs in the 3 days and I was so inspired and elated by the discovery
of this great, new healing system, that I continued on the  water fast for a total of 10 days.
Then I became a lacto -vegetarian, and began a new life, forever free from all fear of disease. Now I was convinced
that disease was a healing process.

 In the course of my life afterwards, I have always been my own doct or and in the 3 times I had influenza during my
lifetime, I always went on a fast, and the flu NEVER failed to disappear after 3 days. This radical experiment changed
my life forever.

 copyright © Dr. Stanley S. Bass   (718) 648 -1500    www.drbass.com  4

Another interesting phenomena which I have experienced is, that on 3 occasions in my lifetime, whenever I had a
dead or abscessed tooth causing inflammation and facial swelling, I invariably went on a water fast, and within 13 to
18 days  the dead tooth fell out by itself. Naturally and painlessly.
The dentists I told this to were amazed and said they never heard of this. Yet I saved these teeth as proof of Nature
being able to handle all conceivable physical problems.
Stanley S. Bass, Apr il 12, 1994

 (Note: resting in bed while fasting is much preferable.)  The picture shows me in 1956
on the
38th day of a water fast, while
working. My weight is 158 lb.

Interview with Dr. Bass:
What is important to know before ones first fast?
Fasting is an ancient method, that is usually unequalled in speed and success for many hard -to-reverse diseases. But there are
precautions:
If your body is deficient in something, e.g. minerals, for best results an extended fast (over 9 days) should be avoided. Vegans
can be deficient in proteins and fat. This is a major reason why supervision during your first fast is recommended.
It is usually best to start with a short fast (with bed -rest), then be on a good diet for a couple of months to let the body  build health
and strength, while removing its deficiencies. Then have a second fast of equal length or slightly longer, then a good diet a gain.
In this way you'll avoid possible complications. Breaking the fast in a proper way is also very important.
Dr. Gian -Cursio observed migrating birds falling dead from the sky over New York on many occasions. Since these birds were
fasting, his conclusion was that polluted air, as well as other toxins, can complicate fasts, and that there are times when y ou
shouldn't  do a long fast. Dr. Cursio set a limit of maximum 9 days for fasting and recommended fasting in an unpolluted
environment.
In the old days it was pretty easy and safe to go on a long water -fast.
Nowadays with all food additives, dangerous artificial fats and trans -fats, and potent drugs - all of which may have damaged
people severely - it has become more difficult. E.g. almost all bakeries (and candy and ice cream makers) now use dangerous
cheap artificial fats. Antibiotics can have damaged peoples immune systems. (Example: detoxification of antibiotics during fasting
can give temporary very high fevers.)  Actually it wouldn't surprise me if we within 20 years will get an enormous wave of my stery
deaths, due to the low -quality foods and detrimental drugs we  now give our children.

Also it is better to stay in bed, every day of the fast, with lots of sleep. When it comes to length I think a 10 day fast wi th bed -rest
is better than a 30 -day fast without bed -rest. Almost the only thing you get on a long fast while working is the weight loss, but you
don't get the healing. I would not recommend ANY fast while working, long or short, except possibly the first 2 or 3 days, th at's all.

How should I break the fast?
Correctly ending a fast is extremely important. S ince the stomach and digestive system have been taking a well -deserved rest,
you have to start them up gently. Small portions of raw foods, preferably liquid, is best the first days, before slowly intro ducing
other easy -to-digest (raw) foods, in small port ions, over the next week. Vegetable juices are fine. Avoid fruits and fruit juices since
sugars overactivate the insulin mechanism. If you avoid fruits for the first week after a fast you should not develop the rav enous
appetite that so easily can undo any  weight loss you may have achieved. Note: serious (even life -threatening) problems can
develop if you stuff yourself after a fast, especially with cooked foods.

www.drbass.com/symptoms.html
What Symptoms to Expect when You Improve Your Diet
or
Improving y our diet may cause you to feel sick

"This is how recovery occurs - like the cycles in the Dow Jones Average at the beginning of a bull
market recovery. You feel better, a reaction occurs and you don't feel as well for a short while. You
recover and go even higher."

 copyright © Dr. Stanley S. Bass   (718) 648 -1500    www.drbass.com                                                5

INTRODUCTION
If I were asked which is the area of greatest misunderstanding and confusion in the field o f nutrition, I would
immediately be forced to reply, it is the failure to properly understand and interpret the symptoms and changes which
follow the beginning of a better nutritional program.

HIGHER QUALITY NUTRITION
'What is meant by a better nutritional program? It is the introduction of foods of higher quality in place of lower quality
ones.
For example, if a person replaces a protein rich food such a pork with beef, the beef may be considered the superior
of the two - due to its easier diges tibility, lower and less saturated fat content, etc. Similarly chicken is superior to
beef, and fish is superior to chicken because of its more rapid digestibility and lower saturated fat content.
Lima beans, lentils or chick peas, which are


lectromagnetic
pollution	may	indeed	be	the	single	most	important	environmental	change	we
have	made.	Whenever	possible,	avoid	exposing	yourself	to	anything	unnatural
and	foreign	to	the	body,	including	all	types	of	man-made	electromagnetic
energy.
Any	electrical	device—a	hair	dryer,	TV	set,	electric	blanket	or	dishwasher—
produces	a	non-ionizing	electromagnetic	field	(EMF)	that	affects	the	way	our
cells	function.	Cell	membranes	(or	receptor	molecules	in	them)	act	as	amplifiers
for	sending	signals	into	cells.	EMFs	can	interrupt	and	change	these	signals,affecting	certain	cell	functions	and	cell-to-cell	communications.	For	example,
EMFs	can	alter	the	rate	at	which	cells	make	hormones,	enzymes	and	other
proteins.	EMFs	can	also	induce	changes	in	the	rate	at	which	genetic	material
(DNA)	is	made	and	in	the	rate	of	errors	when	RNA	is	copied	from	it.
Researchers	believe	that	daytime	exposure	to	EMFs	limits	the	release	of
melatonin,	a	cancer-protective	and	sleep-regulating	hormone.	By	limiting	release
of	melatonin,	EMFs	can	contribute	to	cancer.	One	prominent	cancer	theory	is
that	cancer	cell	growth	results	from	a	breakdown	in	cell-to-cell	communication,
which	is	precisely	what	happens	when	melatonin	production	is	limited.	In	fact,
any	process	that	reduces	the	average	level	of	melatonin	is	likely	to	promote
estrogen-dependent	cancers,	such	as	breast,	skin	and	prostate	cancers.	Consider
some	examples	of	ominous	EMF	research:	In	1998,	a	twenty-nine-member	panel
of	the	National	Institute	of	Environmental	Health	Sciences	concluded	that	there
is	a	“possibility	that	electromagnetic	fields	are	carcinogenic.”	The	committee
found	a	statistically	significant	correlation	between	EMF	exposure	and	leukemia
in	both	children	and	adults	whose	exposure	was	significantly	higher	than
average.	Likewise,	studies	in
Epidemiology
and	the
American	Journal	of
Epidemiology
have	found	statistically	significant	correlations	between	EMFs	and
breast	cancer,	brain	cancer	and	Alzheimer’s	disease.
All	of	these	health	repercussions	can	occur	simply	from	being	near	an	electric
appliance?	Consider	an	experiment	reported	in	scientist	John	Ott’s	1976	book
Health	and	Light:
Two	groups	of	mice	were	placed	the	same	distance	from	a
television	set;	one	group	was	separated	from	the	set	by	lead	shielding,	the	other
by	black	paper.	The	paper-shielded	group	became	hyperactive,	aggressive	and
wild,	while	the	lead-shielded	group	remained	normal.	Autopsies	of	the	paper-
shielded	group	showed	brain	abnormalities.	With	studies	like	these,	one	wonders
what	may	be	happening	to	people	who	spend	a	lot	of	time	in	front	of	TV	sets	and
computer	monitors,	particularly	children	whose	brains	are	still	developing	and
who	are	more	sensitive	to	such	damage.	Is	our	children’s	behavior	being	affected
not	only	by	the	messages	on	TV	but	also	by	radiation	damage	that	we	are	not	yet
measuring?	Less	than	a	century	ago,	we	did	not	sit	in	front	of	electronic	screens
at	all;	now	we	use	them	constantly,	both	at	work	and	play.
The	best	policy	for	people	concerned	about	health,	especially	cancer,	is	to
minimize	exposure	to	EMFs.	Remember,	EMFs	are	generated	around	electrical
appliances,	power	lines	and	transformers;	they	can	be	found	just	about
everywhere,	including	your	home,	office	or	school.	EMFs	become	less
dangerous	as	distance	from	the	source	increases,	so	choose	to	keep	a	safe
distance	between	your	body	and	electromagnetic	fields.How	much	exposure	is	too	much?	Scientists	measure	the	power	of	these	fields
in	miligauss	(mG);	experts	around	the	world	have	proposed	limiting	chronic
individual	exposures	to	a	level	of	2	mG,	with	occasional	peak	exposures	to	about
10	mG.	Unfortunately,	we	often	experience	much	higher	exposures.	A	hair
dryer,	which	develops	a	powerful	field	next	to	your	head,	can	dish	out	20,000
mG.	An	electric	razor	(not	a	battery-powered	razor)	can	generate	1,600	mG	and
is	mere	inches	away	from	your	pineal	gland,	which	produces	the	cancer-
protective	hormone	melatonin.	A	study	done	at	Battel	Memorial	Institute’s
research	center	in	Seattle	found	that	men	who	used	electric	razors	had	twice	the
odds	as	nonusers	of	developing	leukemia.	The	correlation	between	EMFs	and
cancer	is	positively	alarming;	we	need	to	be	careful!
A	running	dishwasher	or	clothes	washer	produces	30	to	50	mG	at	a	distance	of
one	foot,	so	be	sure	to	keep	a	couple	of	feet	away	while	it	is	running.	A
microwave	oven	can	measure	80	mG	at	a	distance	of	one	foot,	but	quickly	drops
off	to	between	3	and	8	mG	just	thirty-nine	inches	away.	A	fluorescent	lamp
develops	as	much	as	4,000	mG	an	inch	away,	but	measures	only	0.1	to	3	mG
when	thirty-nine	inches	away.	A	high	voltage	transmission	line	can	measure	up
to	300	mG	at	the	edge	of	the	right-of-way;	a	regular	distribution	line	can
measure	80	mG	right	under	the	line.	When	buying	a	home	or	choosing	an
apartment,	choose	one	that	is	not	immediately	adjacent	to	high-voltage
distribution	and	transmission	lines	or	transformers.
We	need	to	be	prudent	in	the	use	of	appliances.	When	possible,	use
rechargeable	battery-powered	appliances	rather	than	plug-in	models.	Do	not
stand	immediately	next	to	an	electrical	appliance	when	it	is	turned	on,	especially
for	an	extended	period	of	time.	Follow	these	other	recommendations	also:
•	Turn	on	the	dishwasher	when	finished	in	the	kitchen	and	you	are	ready	to
leave	the	room.
•	Avoid	electric	blankets,	or	use	them	only	to	warm	up	the	bed	before	you
get	in	it.
•	Keep	telephone	answering	machines	and	electric	clocks	away	from	your
head	while	you	are	sleeping.
•	Increase	distance	from	televisions	(at	least	six	feet	away),	computer
monitors	and	appliances,	especially	those	that	come	into	close	contact	with
your	body,	such	as	hair	dryers	and	electric	razors.
•	Avoid	using	a	cell	phone.	If	you	must	use	a	cell	phone,	limit	the	number
and	length	of	your	calls	as	much	as	possible.
•	Avoid	gazing	into	your	microwave	while	your	food	warms	up.	Even	better
is	to	avoid	the	use	of	microwaves—	for	safety	as	well	as	nutritional	andtoxicological	reasons—	but	at	least	stay	a	safe	distance	away	if	you	do	use
one.
•	Be	careful	of	battery-powered	wristwatches,	a	subtle	but	constant	EMF
exposure.
•	Replace	your	computer	monitor	and	television	with	flat	panel	display
units,	so	as	to	eliminate	the	electromagnetic	radiation	emitted	by	the
cathode	ray	tubes	in	regular	TVs	and	monitors.
Of	course,	some	people	are	more	susceptible	to	EMFs	than	o


 that’s not really true. We’re living
longer, but for the last 10 to 15 years of our lives, we’re completely debilitated, hooked to a machine
or some drip bottle, extending life because we have better insurance. But it’s not a better life. It’s not
a longer life. It’s just extension.
seawater Minerals and the Coming Agricultural Revolution
Mike : Right. It’s a life with no clarity of mind and no physical stamina. I think the big question from
people, though, is, “Why do I need minerals in my food?” People think they can take a calcium pill and
solve the problem. What would you say to someone who came up to you and said, “What good is this?
Why do I need minerals in my food?”
Hartman : Well, first of all, as you stand there, you—just like animals and soil and fauna—are made up
of 90 minerals. And when you are born, you have 90 elements in your body. A certain percentage of
those are shed every day in your waste, and they need to be replaced. So how do they get replaced, and
what’s the chemical mechanism for their replacement? The only way they can be replaced in the body is
in an organic form. Now this is a tricky subject—organic and inorganic—because the food movement
has been misnamed, and they get the wrong idea about the chemistry or the process. What’s going on
here, though, is that each thing that comes into the human body needs to come in its organic form—
and in a chemistry definition, it has to have carbon complex molecules as it comes into the body. In
other words, it has to come in as fruit or vegetable or meat—something that is a carbon compound.
Mike : So you can’t just grind up seashells and eat that and expect to get all your calcium.
Hartman : No, absolutely not. I mean, there are some animals that can do that because they have a
different digestive system. Cows are ruminants; they have multiple stomachs, and they have special
bacteria that allow them to do that. They don’t do it well, but they can do it. Humans can’t do it at all.
Mike : We have to get our minerals in plant form. That’s what you’re saying?
Hartman : Right, and when you take a vitamin pill, most of that is going down the toilet.
Mike : Unless it’s a whole food concentrate that was raised on a lot of minerals. That’s a different story,
correct?
Hartman : That’s right. Again, you have to take your food in an organic fashion. Basically there’s a
symbiotic relationship between humans and plants. Plants inhale carbon dioxide, strip off the carbon,
compound it with other minerals and elements to make a carbon compound, and exhale oxygen. You
inhale oxygen, attach carbon to it that plants have stripped off, and exhale carbon dioxide. It’s a lovely
relationship. That’s the way it works. So when an organic farmer says, “I’m going to put manure on
my field,” that’s fine, but it’s going to have to break down, liberate the carbon atom and become an
inorganic element—and that element goes into a solution with water, and the plant picks it up. The
plant cannot directly pick up organic compounds. It gets tricky, because the whole industry has the
wrong name. Everybody thinks that the only good food is food that gets manure put on it. The sad part
is that the chemical farmers actually have a more readily available product for the plant. They don’t have
very many elements, but at least they are elements that can be used right away.
seawater Minerals and the Coming Agricultural Revolution
How ocean minerals nourish the soils, crops and consumers
Mike : So how does ocean water fit the blueprint of plants here?
Hartman : Well, ocean water is just a remarkable, remarkable solution. It’s uniform all over the world.
In other words, with a few exceptions, if you take samples of sea water all over the planet, it will have all
90 elements in the same proportion in the same order. It’s reliable, and humans have tried to duplicate
seawater with no success. It’s a very difficult thing to make, but there it is, and it’s perfect just the way
it is.
Mike : So when seawater goes into the soil, how are plants readily able to use it?
Hartman : We dilute it down, because it’s strong. We didn’t invent seawater, and it’s a perfect product as
it is. What we try to do is to make it as economic for people to use as possible. Our proprietary process
is to concentrate it so it’s economically viable and so that we can ship it halfway around the world.
Mike : What kind of concentration is it of ocean water? Like 10:1 or what?
Hartman : That’s a piece of information that we don’t give out yet, because we have a provisional process
patent pending, but we will be able to share that soon. There are certain things we don’t mention yet,
and that’s one of them. What you have is a highly concentrated solution that you can ship to the
Midwest, and then it gets diluted back down to a safe level for a plant, and what you’re putting down
on the field is an ionic solution. I know this is a lot of chemistry, but it’s actually really simple. The ionic
solution is made of elements that have either given up or taken on an electron so that they have either
a positive or negative charge. The only thing the plant can feed on is an ionic solution; so the plant is
getting, literally, an IV of food. When you go out and watch farmers using spreaders to spread all that
matter all over their fields, it is in no way food for a plant yet. It’s kind of haphazard, because how
readily that breaks down and goes into solution with the rainwater or the irrigation water depends on
how much rain there is or how much moisture there is. It’s terribly complicated to do farming the way
they did in the past, but this is so easy. It’s got everything, and it’s very easy to apply.
Mike : When a person gets your product, it’s called Ocean Solution, and Sea Solution is another name
of the product, right?
Hartman : Right.
Mike : People dilute it themselves, just using their garden hose, right?
Hartman : That’s right. They can use well water, city water and so on.
seawater Minerals and the Coming Agricultural Revolution
Mike : How much water do they add to yours?
Hartman : They would add a hundred parts water to one part Ocean Solution.
Mike : So the Ocean Solution goes a long way. Then they spread that on the garden and wait? Let
nature take over from there?
Hartman : Right.
Why eating mineral-rich garden vegetables can make a huge difference
in your health
Mike : The point of all of this is not only to make healthy soil and healthy plants, but also to help
enhance the health of people through enhanced nutrition. That’s where this is all heading.
Hartman : Yes, and I think it’s time to steer us back to Dr. Murray, who is a phenomenal character
in history, and some day I think he will be recognized as such. Dr. Murray was an intern, a medical
student, in the 1930s, and you can imagine what an intern’s life is like. You’ve seen it on “ER” and other
shows. It’s just basically 12 hours of deaths and the horror of cancer and all the diseases that come
through a hospital, with not many solutions in the 1930s, as you can imagine. To clear his head, Dr.
Murray would go out to the docks. He was an intern at Mass General in Boston, and he would go out
on the docks at night to walk and clear his head.
One night, he came across a commercial fisherman who had just come back from being out at sea. Just
out of curiosity, he said, “Look, I’m learning to be a doctor in the hospital here, and all day long I deal
with people who have cancer and strokes and tumors and all this kind of thing. Just out of curiosity,
what do fish get?” The fisherman didn’t hesitate one second. He just shot right back and said, “I’ve been
fishing 40 years, and I’ve never seen a sick fish—not one.” You can imagine what an event that was for
a man who’s very scientific and has a very inquiring nature. This really lit the light bulb for him, and he
made it his life’s quest to figure out what it is that is special about seawater.
In the 1930s, straight through to his death in 1983, he researched this. He did massive research. He
went out on ships and collected samples—animals from the sea. He would autopsy them and send
tissue samples back to a lab in Chicago that he had a relationship with. He said, “What’s the difference
between these two tissue samples?” The lab would say, “There’s no difference. They’re identical.”
And he said, “That’s interesting, because one is from a 60-year-old whale, and the other is from its
offspring.” Sea animals grow very large,


 of neurons by age 2, and
by age 30, the number starts to decline. The loss of any
single brain cell is permanent, since neurons do not
regenerate. On the basis of this well-known fact, brain
decline seemed to be scientiﬁcally valid; sadly but
inevitably, to grow old must lead to memory loss, decreased
reasoning ability, impaired intelligence, and related
symptoms.
These time- honored assumptions, however, have now
been shown to be wrong. Careful study of healthy elderly
people—as opposed to the sick, hospitalized ones whom
medicine habitually studi ed—has revealed that 80 percent
of healthy Americans, barring psychological distress (such
as loneliness, depression, or lack of outside stimulation),suﬀer no signiﬁcant memory loss as they age. The ability to
retain new information can decline, which is why old
people forget phone numbers, names, and the reason for
walking into a room; but the ability to remember past
events, calle d long-term memory, actually improves. (One
authority on aging quotes Cicero, who declared, “I’ve never
heard of an old man who forgot where his money was
hidden.”)
In tests where 70-year-olds were matched with 20-year-
olds, the older people performed better than the younger in
this area of memory. After they practiced the other kind of
memory—called short-te rm memory—for a few minutes
every day, the older group could almost match the younger
subjects, who were at their prime of mental functioning.
Perhaps the “prime of life” should be extended. The
secret, as with almost every other “natural” decline in old
age, depends on habits of mind, not the circuitry in the
nervous system. As long as a person stays  mentally active,
he will remain as intelligent as in youth and middle age.
People will still lose over one billion neurons throughout
their lifetime, at an average rate of 18 million per year, but
this loss is compensated for by another structure, the
branchlike ﬁlaments called dendrites, which connect the
nerve cells to one another.
A nerve cell tends to be highly individual in shape, but
typically it has a bulbou s central section from which thin
arms radiate, like an octopus. These arms, or axons, end in
a swirl of tiny ﬁlaments that looked treelike to the early
anatomists, so they named them dendrites after the Greek
word for “tree.” Dendrites, which can vary in number from
less than a dozen to more than a thousand per cell, serve as
contact points, allowing the neuron to send signals to its
neighbors. By growing new dendrite s, a neuron can open
new channels of communication in every direction, like a
switchboard sprouting extra lines.It is not known how a thought is actually formed among
brain cells or how the bewilderingly vast number of
connections interrelate—millions of dendrites come
together at major junctio n points in the body, such as the
solar plexus,  not to mention the billions upon billions in the
brain itself. But experiments have shown that new
dendrites can be grown throughout life, up to advanced old
age. The current view is that this new growth easily
provides us with the physical structure for unimpaired
brain function. In a healthy brain, senility is not physically
normal. A rich multiplication of dendrites might even lie
behind growing wise in old age, a time when more and
more of life is seen in its totality—in other words, more
interconnected, just as the nerve cells are more
interconnected through their new dendrites.
This exampl e illustrates how radically wrong medicine
can be if it insists that matter is superior to mind. To say
that a nerve cell creates thoughts may be true, but it is just
as true to say that thinking creates nerve cells. In the case
of the new dendrites,  it is the habit of thinking,
remembering, and being mentally active that creates the
new tissue. Nor is this an isolated ﬁnding. Curiously
enough, as soon as the concept of the “new old age” was
permissible in the eyes of doctors, our views of many forms
of degeneration began to alter.
As long as you exercise, for example, your body’s
musculature will not wither, and your strength will be
unimpaired for life, altho ugh there will be a slow decline in
stamina. You can train for a mara thon at 65, provided you
are in good physical shape and train sensibly. Similarly,
your heart changes with age, growing less resilient and
pumping less blood per beat, but heart disease and
hardening of the arteries, thought absolutely normal with
old age a few decades ago, are now seen as avoidable, too,
depending on diet and lifestyle. Strokes, another given ofold age, have declined by 40 percent just in the last decade,
thanks to better control of hypertension and less fat in our
diets. A large  perce ntage of “unavoidable” senility has been
traced to vitamin deﬁciency, poor diet, and dehydration.
The overall result of these ﬁndings is that old age is being
drastically reconsidered; a less obvious result is that the
whole body, at any stage of life, has to be rethought.
—
What is happening on every front in medicine is that the
healthy body is showing  itself to be more resilient and
versatile than was hithe rto suspected. Whereas medical
school teache s that germ A causes disease B and is treated
by drug C, nature seems to feel that this is only one option
among many. The mental approach to treating cancer, for
instance, would have been ridiculed a decade ago. But
people do seem able to participate in their cancer
treatment, and even to control the course of the disease, by
using thoughts. In 1971, Dr. O. Carl Simonton, a radiologist
at the University of Texas, met a 61-year-old man with
throat cancer. The disease was very far progressed; the
patient could hardly swallow, and his weight had dropped
to 98 pounds.
Not only was the prognosis extremely poor—the doctors
gave him a 5 percent chance of surviving ﬁve years after
treatment—but the patient was already so weak that it
seemed unlikely he would respond well to radiation, which
is the standard therapy for this condition. In desperation,
but also curious to try a psychological approach, Dr.
Simonton suggested that the man enhance his radiation
therapy through the use of visualization. He was taught to
visualize his cancer as vividly as possible. Then, using any
mental pictu re that appealed to him, he was asked to
visualize his immune system as the white blood cellssuccessfully attacked the cancer cells and swept them out
of the body, leaving only healthy cells behind.
The man said he envisioned his immune cells as a
blizzard of white particles, covering the tumor like snow
burying a black rock. Dr. Simonton had him go home and
repeat this visualization at intervals throughout  the day.
The man agreed, and soon his tumor seeme d to be
shrinking. In a few weeks it was deﬁnitely smaller, and his
response to radiation was almost free of side eﬀects; after
two months, the tumor was gone.
Naturally, Dr. Simonton was surprised and baﬄed,
though elated that the psychological approach had been so
powerful. How does a thought defeat a cancer cell? The
mechanism was totally unknown—in fact, given the ﬁendish
complexity of the immune system and the nervous system,
both of which were obviously involved here, the mechanism
might be unknowable. For his part, the patient accepted his
cure without undue surprise. He told Dr. Simonton that
arthritis in his legs kept him from going stream-ﬁshing as
much as he liked. Now that the cancer was gone, why not
try visualizin g the arthritis away too? Within a few more
weeks, that is exactly what happened. The man remained
free of both cancer and arthritis for a follow-up period of
six years.
This now-famous case is a landmark in mind-body
medicine, but unfortunately it is not the whole story. Dr.
Simonton’s visualization therapy (it has branched out into a
broad mind-b ody program ) does not reliably cure cancer.
One of my patients used it with success to cure herself of
breast cancer, I believe, although she practiced the
technique on her own and not under a doctor’s scrutiny.
Long-term statistical studies, however, dispute whether
such sporadic results are any better than those of
conventional treatment. At present, conventional  therapy
has a big edge. If a woman with breast cancer, for example,detects the tumor while it is still very small and localized,
the chances of curing her (a “cure” means surviving at
least three years without  a recurrence of the disease) are
currently better than 90 percent. In comparison, the
number of spontaneous remissions, at the most generous
estimate, would be well below 1⁄10 of 1 percent. Until a
mental or other alternative therapy outperforms radiation
and chemotherapy, it


	promoting
Radical	Beauty.	The
asana
,	or	pose	part	of	yoga,	incorporates	twisted	and
circular	movements	of	different	muscle	groups.	This	includes	flexing	your	spine
in	all	directions.	There	are	many	advantages	to	this	over	linear	movements	with
a	limited	range	of	motion.
YOGA	GEAR
To	start	practicing	yoga,	you’ll	want	to	invest	in	a	decent	yoga	mat	that	will
prevent	you	from	skidding	and	sliding	during	your
asanas
	and	is	thick	enough	to
provide	padding	for	your	knees	and	hips	during	various	poses.	There	are	a	lot	of
great	eco-friendly	mats	available.	You	may	also	want	to	invest	in	two	yoga	blocks
to	help	modify	poses,	especially	as	a	beginner.	These	are	fairly	inexpensive	but
enormously	helpful	in	making	sure	you	don’t	compromise	the	integrity	of	the	pose
as	you	naturally	increase	your	flexibility.	For	some	poses,	such	as
Parsvottonasana
,
or
Pyramid	pose	(see
this	page
),	you	can	use	one	block	on	either	side	of	your	leg	to
help	you	modify	the	pose.	Other	gear,	such	as	yoga	belts	and	blankets,	are	not	fully
necessary,	especially	as	a	beginner.	You	can	think	about	investing	in	them	later	if
you	find	a	need.	For	now,	a	pillow	or	any	sturdy	blanket	you	already	have	at	home
can	be	used	to	help	elevate	hips	for	seated	poses	and,	while	practicing
pranayama
,	to	increase	your	comfort	and	help	align	your	spine.
Yoga	is	cleansing	in	many	different	ways.	It	allows	you	to	physically	stimulate
your	abdominal	organs,	including	your
liver,	kidneys,	and	digestive	organs.
This	makes	yoga	incredibly	beneficial	for	digestion,	which	you	now	know	is	key
to	beauty	and	health.	Yoga	also	stimulates	your	endocrine	glands,	including	the
thyroid	gland,	which	controls	your
metabolism.	It	also	helps	cleanse	your	liver,
your	main	detoxifying	organ.	Far	beyond	simply	burning	calories	or	workingyour	limbs	and	core,	when	practiced	properly	yoga	can	be	a	very	powerful	tool
in	helping	to	keep	your	body	limber,	strong,	youthful,	and	beautifully	healthy
with	an	all-around	glow	and	beautiful,	healthy	skin.
Yoga
asanas
	are	the	ideal	physical	movements	to	couple	with	the	other	shifts
in	this	book	to	physically	support	a	clean,	beautiful	body	and	mind.	The	deeper
benefits	of	yoga	extend	to	settling	and	balancing	your	mind,	preparing	you	for
meditation,	and	aiding	in	the	meditation	practice	itself,	which	we	will	discuss	in
Pillar	6
.	For	now,	let’s	focus	on	the	physical,	movement-based	aspects	of	yoga	so
you	can	begin	reaping	its	many	beauty	benefits.
Top	Radical	Beauty	Poses	for	Beauty	and
Detoxification
Below	are	among	the	most	effective	and	beneficial	poses	to	incorporate	into
your	lifestyle.	You	can	try	a	few	of	these	poses	that	you	feel	the	most	connected
to,	or	try	all	of	them	and	see	which	ones	your	body	and	mind	respond	to.	You
can	work	them	into	your	daily	routine	right	after	rising	in	the	morning,	as
many	of	these	can	easily	be	practiced	in	the	space	next	to	your	bed	or	even
perhaps	in	bed	if	you	have	a	firm	mattress.	Others,	such	as
Paschimottanasana
,
which	is	a	nervous-system-soothing
seated	forward	bend,	are	excellent	to
incorporate	into	your	evening	routine	for	added	digestive	and	anxiety-quelling
benefits	as	you	get	ready	for	some	all-important	beauty	rest.
If	you	are	new	to	yoga,	are	pregnant,	or	have	a	medical	condition,	please	talk
to	your	doctor	before	beginning.TADASANA
	(
MOUNTAIN	POSE)
BENEFITS:
	This	pose	can	bring	profound	awareness	into	a	seemingly	simple
stance.	It	strengthens	the	legs,	firms	your	abdomen	and	glutes,	and	improves
your	posture.
DESCRIPTION:
	Stand	straight	with	the	insides	of	your	big	toes	together.	Line
up	your	feet	parallel,	heels	a	little	apart,	middle	toes	pointing	forward.	Ground
your	energy	evenly	through	the	four	corners	of	your	feet,	and	gently	pull	up
from	your	spine.	Open	your	chest	and	shoulders	slightly,	but	keep	your	chin
parallel	to	the	floor.	Hands	come	together	in
Anjali
	mudra	(with	palms
pressing),	or	arms	drop	gently	to	your	sides.
BEST	TIME	TO	PRACTICE:
	This	can	be	practiced	anytime,	but	it’s	a	fantastic	way
to	start	the	day	while	feeling	tall,	confident,	and	grounded.
OTHER	TIPS:
	Try	doing	this	pose	at	first	standing	sideways	in	front	of	a	full-
length	mirror	so	you	can	get	a	visual	image	of	your	own	posture	and
consequently	learn	to	feel	what	is	proper	posture	in	your	own	body.SUPTA	MATSYENDRASANA
	(
SUPINE	TWIST)
BENEFITS:
	Twists	literally	squeeze	toxins	out	of	your	liver	and	kidneys,
stimulating	digestion	and	cleansing	and	encouraging	a	healthy	blood	flow	to
energize	your	entire	spine.	Practiced	regularly,	twists	will	help	leave	you	with	a
more	clean	and	beautiful	body.	There	are	many	different	variations	of	yogic
twists,	including	ones	practiced	while	standing,	sitting,	and	lying	down.	This
particular	supine	twist	is	great	for	all	levels.
DESCRIPTION:
	Begin	lying	on	your	back.	Open	your	arms	out	to	the	side	in	a
T.	Bend	your	left	knee,	and	lift	it	up,	allowing	it	to	start	to	drop	and	twist	over
your	right	thigh	as	far	as	it	feels	natural	and	comfortable.	Continue	to	breathe
slowly	as	you	let	your	head	turn	naturally	to	the	left	and	root	your	shoulders
down.	Let	your	knee	drop	open	as	much	as	feels	natural,	allowing	the	spine	and
organs	to	twist	and	wring	out.	Stay	in	the	twist	for	at	least	five	to	ten	breaths	or
more.	Repeat	on	the	right	side.
BEST	TIME	TO	PRACTICE:
	Any	time	of	the	day.
OTHER	TIPS:
	Always	twist	your	left	leg	over	first	in	order	to	follow	the	path	of
your	digestive	tract	and	encourage	wastes	to	exit	your	system	efficiently.MĀRJĀRYASANA	BITILASANA
	(
CAT-COW)
BENEFITS:
	Regularly	flexing	your	spine	as	you	do	in	this	sequence	is	one	of
the	best	long-term	beauty	movements.	By	stimulating	all	your	organs,	especially
your	vitality-enhancing	kidneys	as	well	as	your	colon	and	digestive	tract,
Mārjāryasana
	boosts	your	overall	circulation	and	stimulates	your	entire	spine,
relieving	stress	and	revitalizing	your	energy.
DESCRIPTION:
	Start	by	kneeling	on	your	hands	and	knees,	keeping	your	hands
underneath
your	shoulders	and	your	knees	underneath	your	hips.	Exhale	deeply
through	your	mouth	and	contract	your	abdominal


 depicting the flow of energy
throughout the elements. For instance, earth is the mother of metal and also
the child of fire.
As energy circulates throughout the body, it passes through each organ
and bowel in a well-defined cycle. Each organ or bowel is the "mother" of
the organ or bowel succeeding it on the circuit; this phenomenon is based
on the Five Element Theory. For example, the lungs support the kidneys
and therefore the lungs are said to be the "mother" of the kidneys. If the
energy within the kidneys (child) is deficient, stimulating the energy within
the lungs (mother) with the Eagle Exercise results in an automatic increase
54 The Internal Exercises
of energy in the kidneys, according to the Mother and Child Law. Here,
one is treating two organs with one exercise. By consulting the diagram of
influences (figures 3 and 4) and Table 2, an exercise or a group of exercises
can be selected to suit any need.
In addition to healing and balancing the organs, these exercises also
effectively remove tension, stress, anger, and anxiety. According to Taoist
theories, stress and tension are the most corrosive enemies of health.
Taoists believe that all health problems can be traced to stress and tension,
because, even with the best foods and medicatio ns, stress and tension can
so restrict the functions of the organs that none of the nutrients necessary
for cell repair, regeneration, or health can be absorbed.
The proper use of imagination plays an important part in each of the Five
Animal Exercises. It has been recognized for centuries that a thought is as
much a reality as a material object, and in fact, that they are one and the
same. They are both fonns of energy. These ancient theories have been
confinned by the work of Dr. Karl Pribram, a Stanford University neuro
surgeon and psycholo gist. Imagination is used, then, to bring together the
mind and the body so that they function as a unit. Unifying the image of a
particular animal with that of on e's body strengthens a person psycholo gi
cally and physically.
When one perfonns the exercises, one's thoughts must be fixed upon the
image of the animals. The exercise must stop the moment the mind
wanders. Also, the miming of the animals' movements must be executed in
a free flowing manner.
Never overdo one exercise. If one concentra tes too much on the Eagle
Exercise (metal), for example, one could decrease the liver function
(wood). If you become too relaxed, the nerves will become dulled. But if
the liver is overactive-hav ing an augmented energy level...-:.it could be
calmed by the Eagle Exercise. So, the key word here is balance.
THE DRAGON EXERC ISE
For the ancient Chinese, the dragon was a mythical creature which
symbolized the Yang force of the Creative, the dynamic, electrically
charged energy manifested in the thunderstorm. The flying dragon was
always portrayed as being accompan ied by rain, winds, clouds, and light-
55 The Internal Exercises
Illustration 3. The Dragon.
56 The Internal Exercises
ning. The use of its image was reserved for personal use by the emperor,
the Son of Heaven, as the dragon represented supreme wisdom, power,
control, and social effectiveness.
The purpose of the Dragon Exercise is to instill the characteristics of the
dragon into the mind and body of the practitioner. This exercise affects the
mind by helping to overcome feelings of depression, anger, hostility, and
all the anxieties brought on by being overwhel med by adverse circum
stances, for the dragon, flying through the heavens, is above all mundane
concerns.
In some ancient Taoist texts, the Dragon Exercise appeared under other
names. This was a precautiona ry measure taken to avoid political upheav
als. The emperors have forbidden the common people from picturing
themselves as dragons, because they would immediately rise up and
dislodge the prevailing power.
Since the dragon represents the fire element, the physical effect of its
exercise is to bring equilibrium to the heart, blood vessels, and absorption
in the small int estines.
Figure 5. Dragon Exercise.
57 The Internal Exercises
Begin the exercise by standing still. Then, take a few deep breaths while
imagining as vividly as possible that you are a dragon with glowing eyes,
open mouth with fangs, glistening emerald scales, curling tail, paws
splayed showing long claws. Then, raising one foot, assume the pose and
character of a dragon. While imagining that your hands are claws, hold one
arm up with claws down and hold _the other arm down with claws up. As
this is not a formalized pose, a certain degree of freedom of expression is
allowed within the confines of the image. Hold the pose as long as you can
hold the image without straining. Repeat as many times as you comfortably
can.
The most important aspect of this and all the other exercises is the union
of the body and the mind. If the image fades or the mind wanders during the
pose, stop and begin again. No benefit will be obtained unless the body and
the mind are in union.
THE TIGER EXERC ISE
While the dragon symbolizes the emperor, the tiger represents the
general, a military leader with ambition, knowledge, power, and physical
effectiveness and who protects the imperial throne and enforces the wishes
of the emperor.
The tiger corresponds to the the wood element, so the Tiger Exercise
affects the liver and nerves. The Taoists believe the structure of the nervous
system is like a potted plant which sprouts from the liver.
The Tiger Exercise is useful in overcoming the adverse mental states of
anxiety or hostility, ineffectualness, and lack of ambition. These adverse
mental attitudes are believed to result from metabolic imbalances caused by
liver dysfunction.
This exercise is recommended for healing and detoxifying the liver, to
sooth inflamed nerves, to balance gallbladder functions, and to detoxify the
brain and body cells.
The tiger demons trates its power in its ab ility to capture something by
leaping over it and grabbing it. The tiger pose is an imitation of this
"leaping over" movement.
Begin by standing still. Take a few deep breaths while imagining
yourself as a tiger. When the visualization is complete, bend your knees
58 The Internal Exercises
Figure 6. Tiger Exercise.
slightly and rise up on your toes while reaching up and out until your arms
are straight. Keep the claws down, as if you have reached over and out to
grab something. Maintain this position as long as you can hold the image
without straining the body. Repeat as many times as is comfortable.
THE BEAR EXERC ISE
The bear is also a very powerful animal, but it is an animal of leisure as
well. Bears eat well, sleep well, wander about slowly, and are rather lazy
and unaggressive. Bears are left alone and are not teased because they have
the strength, courage, and prowess to deal with any potential adversary.
The bear repr esents those who have attained a high degree of physical and
material comfort. They can be successful business executives sitting be
hind large desks.
59 The Internal Exercises
The Bear Exercise is recommended to aid the thought processes, to aid
conceptua lization, and to instill decisiveness into decision making.
The bear is asso ciated with the earth element, and so this exercise affects
the enzyme production of the spleen-p ancreas and the function ing of the
stomach muscle. This exercise is therefore recommended for bad diges
tion, hyper- and hypoglycemia, and diabetes.
The power and strength of the bear becomes evident when it stands and
walks on its hind legs. In this position, the most prominent physical feature
of the bear also becomes obvious- its stomach, which protrudes outward
and prevents the bear from walking straight.
Figure 7. Bear Exercise.
Begin this exercise by standing still. Take a few deep breaths while
visualizing yourself as a bear. Then with legs stiff, stomach pushed out,
anns sloping out in front, walk slowly forward. As you do this, you will
feel the movement of your abdomen and the stimulation of the area of the
spleen-p ancreas.
Continue walking this way as long as the image remains fixed in your
mind. Repeat as many times as is convenient.
60 The Internal Exerc ises
THE EAGLE EXERC ISE
To the ancient Taoists the flying eagle represented the s pirit because of
its god-like qualities-silence, serenity, and invisibility. The eagle is also an
accomplished hunter. It soars effortlessly to great heights, and its sharp
eyes are alert to all details of the landscape below. The eagle mani fests its
attrib utes of intelligence, alertness, and ease when it hunts.
The eagle is assoc iated with the metal element, so the Eagle Exercise
stimula tes the lungs, skin, and the large intestine.
This exercise is useful in overcoming melancholy, forlornness, and
depressi on, which can result from or cause lung problems. (It is no
coincidence that so many of the romantic poets and writers of Western
literature


 damage before treatment started. Dr.
Chaney's experience was almost  duplicated by Dr. William
Shive and his colleagues at the University of Texas. Dr. Shive
found that raw cabbage juice—as well as the juices of some other vegetables—tends to prevent ulcers and to cure them.
He studied 100 cases in which the ulcerous condition was so
severe that the use of the bland diet and anti-ulcer drugs had
failed. But the drinking of one quart of fresh, raw cabbage
juice per day by these patients brought about marked
beneficial results. The use of raw cabbage juice in amounts
less than one quart per day promotes less rapid recovery than
does the full quota but it is of definite value, and even a glass
of juice per day tends to reduce or eliminate the pain in some
cases. The raw cabbage juice is also an important aid to normal elimination and it improves the general health of the
ulcer patient as well as promoting recovery of his primary affliction.
   The "scraped apple" diet is an old German folk remedy for
both diarrhea and constipation. Modern scientists have
employed raw apple in the treatment of these same conditions
with very good effects. T. L. Birnberg treated diarrhea in children with raw, grated apple and obtained completely
successful results in 88 per cent of all cases. He noted relief
from abdominal pain achieved almost immediately, normal stools achieved in 24 hours, reduction of fever within 48
hours, and disappearance of mucus in 60 hours. The
beneficial effects of raw apple in these cases are attributed to
the presence of "hydrophilic colloids" in the food which absorb excessive water and furnish bulk to control peristalsis.
   Of particular interest is the therapeutic value of raw honey.
This food has long been known as a "folk medicine" for hay fever and asthma, and recent experimental studies conducted
at the William Beaumond General Hospital in El Paso, Texas
have shown that raw honey containing the pollen of the
offending grasses or weeds builds up a natural resistance to
these agents in the body, thereby offering relief to the hay fever victims. Studies made by P. E. Weesen of the
Frauenfelder Sanitarium of Europe showed that patients given
raw honey exceeded all others both in strength and healthy
appearance. Dr. Paula Emrich tested 100 children, and found
that those given raw honey achieved a 12 per cent increase in hemoglobin content of their blood over the others. Dr.
Rolleder
gave a smaller quantit y of raw hone y to 58 children of an Austrian orphanage and noted a hemoglobin increase of
8½ per cent. Dr. Schacht of Wiesbaden claimed to have cured
many supposedly hopeless cases of gastric and intestinal
ulcers with raw honey, and the celebrated Father Sebastian Kneipp remarked that "smaller ulcers in the stomach are
quickly contracted, broken and healed by it." Surprisingly,
raw honey has even been given to treat diabetes. Dr. A. Y.
Davidov of Russia noted that it tended to prevent acetonemia,
and in spite of its high sugar content, its use was associated with the actual reduction of sugar in the urine. The American
physicians, Dr. L. R. Emerick of Eaton, Ohio, and the late Dr.
R. J. Goss of Middlebury, Vermont, have treated hundreds of
diabetic patients with raw honey, achieving remarkable
success and vast improvement in the weight, strength, and
appearance of many patients.
   The value of raw liver in treating pernicious anemia is now
well known. As early as 1926 Drs. Murphy and Minot were
curing severe cases of this disease with raw liver, and they
claimed there was some unidentified factor in the food which
stimulated the growth of red corpuscles. At first this was
called the "red blood vitamin." It is now known that there are two such factors, folic acid and vitamin B
12, both of which
are destroyed by heat. Thus, whereas well-cooked liver is
practically useless in these cases, raw liver brings about
consistent and rapid recovery. For perhaps the same reason
raw liver, given to weak and undersized children, has been reported to increase vigor and strength and improve the rate
of growth.
   Other raw meat products are also of unquestioned
therapeutic importance. When tuberculosis was still a
common disease in this country, frail and consumptive people would be seen going to slaughterhouses to obtain draughts of
fresh blood, which were believed to be of great value in such
cases. In countries where tuberculosis remains prevalent, this
practice is still followed, with reportedly good results. On a
clinical basis the celebrated French physiologist, Prof. Charles Richet, was among the first to use raw beef juice in
the treatment of tuberculosis, and he reported excellent results
in this practice. More recently other European physicians are
following this same method, and they apply the term,
"zomotherapy" to designate treatment of disease with raw meat or raw meat-juice. They claim success with
zomotherapy in treating many conditions, including anemia,
neurasthenia, debility, convalescence, and latent, incipient, or
active tuberculosis.
   Few raw foods have been as highly recommended as
sunflower seeds
, squash seeds, pumpkin seeds, and watermelon seeds in the treatment of disease. Several years
ago, J. I. Rodale noticed that sunflower seeds, when used in
their raw state, effected a remarkable cure for some cases of
bleeding gums. After his report on this subject was published, new evidence accumulated which indicated that raw
sunflower seeds were also useful in treating gum sores,
dermatitis, rheumatism, rheumatic fever, arthritis, and kidney
disease. The teeth were said to improve under the sunflower
seed treatment, as was the condition of the eyes. Raw squash and pumpkin seeds have been recommended as worm
expellents. An infusion made by soaking dried watermelon
seeds in water was an old Indian folk treatment for kidney
and bladder infections, and many in modern life have also
testified as to the efficiency of this treatment. The watermelon seeds may also be eaten in their fresh state with
good results. While much of the evidence in favor of these
uncooked seed foods is in the form of testimonials rather than
clinical data, it is too extensive to be ignored. Whether we
consider the seeds as effective "folk medicine" or just good
food, they are doubtless of much value in modern nutrition.
   Raw foods have even been used to improve the intelligence
quotients and mental attitudes of backward children. In
Germany, Dr. Lottner reported an experiment in which 33
children, having low intelligent quotients and attending a
school for backward children, were given a raw breakfast
each morning. This was in the form of "muesli" an uncooked porridge made from oat flakes, milk, fruits, nuts, and honey.
The children given the raw breakfasts rapidly improved over
all the others. They did better work in dictation, arithmetic, letter-cancelling, and drawing completion tests. They were
also less restless, did not become tired as rapidly as before,
and showed better concentration in accomplishing their daily
work.

C
LINICAL APPLICATION OF THE RAW FOOD DIET
   If the simple addition of certain raw foods to a normal diet
produces such startling changes in human health, it may be
expected that a diet composed entirely, or nearly so, of raw foods would be much more beneficial and achieve more rapid
and far-reaching results. This has been shown to be true at the
Pottenger Sanitarium in California, where a large variety of
raw foods has been employed for therapuetic purposes.
   Dr. Pottenger writes that "the highest grade of raw milk,
raw meat, raw vegetables, and fruit products obtainable" are
used in the clinical work. He points out that "we have been able to im
prove the physiolo gic res ponse of children who have previously been developing in a deficient manner"
similar to the experimental animals which were fed upon
heat-processed foods. Even defective facial growth has been
improved, and Pottenger states that "when additional growth stimulation is applied to certain deficient children at the right
time, before they have attained facial growth, material
changes in the contour of the face can be brought about
without the application of surgical appliances."
   In Europe a diet composed primarily of raw foods was
employed in the treatment of dis ease as early as the latter part
of the nineteenth century. At that time the "Jungborn" a health resort located in the Hartz mountain region between
Isenburg and Hartzburg of Germany, was opened. The
director of this institution was Adolph Just, a philosopher and
naturalist, who concluded from his observations of wild and
domestic animal life that only raw foods were capable of building the health, strength, and vigor that are normal in
nature. At his resort, Mr. Just provided sun and air baths,
special water baths, and earth compresses as treatment in
addition to raw foods. The diet consisted in the main of fruits, berries, nuts, and milk in the uncooked state.
   In 1896, Mr. Just issued a number of case history records
illustrating the results of his raw food and natural treatment therapy. Among the diseases reported cured or benefited were
inflammatory rheumatism, consumption


childrenoverayearold,sotrytorelaxanddonotbe
alarmedbythewhooping fits.
DON'T
•smokeinthesameroomasachildwithwhooping
cough.•giveproprietarycoughmedicinestoreduce
coughing-thechildneedstocoughtogetthe
mucusup.
SEEKHELPIF
•yoususpectyourchildunderoneyearoldhas
whoopingcough.
•thereisfrequentvomitingaftercoughingspells.
Coldsores
Minorattacksofcoldsoresofthemouthrespondwell
totheappropriateinternalandexternalremedies.
Childrencanhaveseriousattacks,withnumerous
soresaroundandinsidethemouthandanaccom-
panyingfever,andhomeopathicremediescanhelp
theseenormously.Renewedoutbreakscanbetrig
geredbvsunlight,coldorgenerallowhealthsoavoid
over-exposureandtrynottogetrundown.
DO
•keeptheaffectedareacleananddrv.
DON'T
•kiss(orengageinoralsex)whilstaffected.
SEEKHELPIF
•coldsoresrecurorareespeciallysevere.
•theareaneartheeyesisaffected.
•thereisnoimprovement afteraweekof
self-prescribing.
•thesoresbecomeinfected,withswelling,redness
andpus.
Colic
Colicsimplymeanssharptummypainsorcramps.
Homeopathictreatment ishighlyeffectiveinthetreat-
mentofsimplecolic,whetherininfants,childrenor
adults.Themothersofbreastfedbabieswithcolic
shouldexperimentwiththeirowndiet,asmanyfoods
areknowntoaffectsomebabies;theseincludedairy
products,alcohol,tea,coffee,peppers,onions,garlic,
cabbage(especiallyraw),orangesandgrapes.Agood
breastfeedingcounsellorwilladvise(seeBreastfeed-
ingproblems).Somebottle-fedbabiesareallergicto
cow'smilkandwillusuallydowellonsoyamilk
althoughthatcanbetooacidicforsome-again,seek
adviceifthishappens.
Colicorstomach-ache inchildrenandadultsneeds
carefulmonitoringincaseitiscausedbyarumbling
appendix.
DO
•givesmallmealsofbland,easilydigestiblefoods.
•eliminatesuspectfoodsfromthedietofababy
whohasjuststartedonsolids.
•trytorelaxwhenbreastfeeding acolickybaby.
SEEKHELPIF
•symptomspersist(especiallyinyoungchildren
whocontinuetoscreaminconsolably).
DISEASESYOUCANTREATUSINGTHISBOOK Cornsandbunions •211
•severepainisnotquicklyalleviatedbyhome
prescribing.
•painisaccompaniedbypersistentvomitingor
diarrhoea.
•painisaccompaniedbyconstipationorabsenceof
urine.
Commoncold
Acoldisoftenthebody'swayoflettingusknowwe
arealittlerundown,andthatourimmunesystem
needsrecharging. Ifyoucan,takealittletimeoff,have
someearlynightsanddealconstructivelywithsome
ofthestressinyourlife.Neglectedcoldsoftenturn
intomoreseriouschestinfections,socatchthemearly.
DO
•getplentyofrestifyouhavebeenoverdoing it.
•drinklotsoffluids.
•cleartheairwaysfrequently,butgently.Teach
yourchildrentocoughupphlegmandtoblow
theirnosesinsteadofsniffingthemucusand
swallowing it.(Putyourfingeroveronenostriland
tellthechildtobreatheinthroughthemouthand
breatheouthardthroughthenosekeepingthe
mouthshut.Repeatwithothernostril.Keepa
tissuehandy!Youcangraduatetoholdingatissue
overthenoseoncetheyhavegotthegeneralidea.
Eventuallybothnostrilscanbeblownatonce!)
•usesteaminhalationstodislodgestubbornmucus.
Sitoverabowlofjust-boiledwaterwithatowel
overthehead(supervisechildrentoavoidany
possibilityofanaccidentalburn).Orrunahotbath
togetthebathroomsteamedup,oruseavaporiser
(filledwithplainwater-don'taddany
decongestant).
•eatplentyoffruitandvegetablesandavoiddairy
products,sugar,junkfoodsandtoomuchbread,
whichallincreasemucusproduction.
•avoidtobaccofumes.
•takesomegentleexerciseinthefreshairtoseeif
thishelps(andusetheresponseasasymptomto
repertorise).
DON'T
•usedecongestants.Theseonlyirritatethenasal
membranesandmakemattersworseassoonasthe
effectwearsoff.
SEEKHELPIF
•yousufferfromfrequentcolds,asyouwillbenefit
fromconstitutionaltreatmenttoboostyour
immunity(seepage14).
•yourcoldseemsundulysevereandyouhaveany
ofthesymptomslistedunderCauseforConcern
(page203).
Conjunctivitis seeEyeinflammationConstipation
Ihaveincludedafewremediesforuseinanacute
situation,butgenerallyspeakingthisisnotacom-
plaintforhometreatmentbeyondfollowingthe
commonsenseDosandDon'tslistedbelow.Ageneral
tendencytoconstipationrequiresprofessional treat-
ment.Therecommendations belowwillhelpacuteor
long-termconstipation.
DO
•makesurethereisplentyoffibreinthedietby
addingmorefruitandvegetables.
•cutoutbreadandwheatproductstemporarilyas
theglutencanhaveacloggingeffect.
•drinkplentyofwater.
•eatstewedprunesinthemorningwitha
tablespoonofmolassesdissolvedinhotwater.
•useoatbran(organicallygrownifpossible)for
occasionalconstipation;branshouldonlybetaken
regularlyontheadviceofaprofessional.
DON'T
•addwheatbranonadailybasis.Itcanirritatethe
bowelsandinterferewiththeassimilationof
vitaminsandminerals,andyourbowelscan
becomedependentonit.Oatbranissolubleand
muchkindertothebowels.
•takelaxativesregularly,particularly ifyourdietis
ofmainlyrefinedandjunkfoods.
SEEKHELPIF
•therehasbeennobowelmovementfor
twenty-fourhoursandthereissevere,unusual
pain.
•thereisdifficultyinpassingastoolandthestools
aregreyorwhite.
•theskinoreyesareyellow.
•thereisasuddenandinexplicablechangeinbowel
habit.
•thereisalternatingdiarrhoeaandconstipation.
•thestoolsareextremelydark,almostblack.
Convulsions
Ihaveincludedsomeremediesforthetreatmentof
convulsionsinchildrenasitispossibletotreatthis
complaintasanemergencymeasureatthesametime
ascallingforhelp.Itisessentialthatyougetprofessional
adviceshouldthiseventoccuratanytime.
Cornsandbunions
DO
•usetheappropriateinternalandexternal
homeopathicremediestohelpalleviatethepainsif
theyaresevere.
•useafeltpadifthebunionisinflamed.
•wearsensibleshoesthatdonotpinchorapply
pressuretothecorns.
•seektheadviceofagoodchiropodist.
212•Cough DISEASESYOUCANTREATUSINGTHISBOOK
Cough
Somechildrencancoughtheirwaythroughtheir
teethingyearsandotherswillsufferfromrepeated
coughsandcoldsforthefirstyearortwoatschool
whiletheirimmunesystemadapts.Youcanusefirst-
aidprescribingforthesecoughsprovidingyouare
havingagoodresponseandthemoodsandenergyof
thechildremainhigh.Ifthecomplaintsrecurinspite
ofcarefulfirst-aidprescribingthenyouneedtoseek
professionalhomeopathic help.Coughsandcolds
thatrecureverywinterarealsomostlyacaseforthe
professionalhomeopath.However, ifyouspotyour
ownchild'sconstitutionalremedypicturefromthe
picturesinthisbookthenyoumayfindthatyour
first-aidprescribinghasthesideeffectofpreventing
therecurrenceoftheseacuteepisodes.
DO
•followalltheDosforCommoncold.
•rest.
•drinklotsofliquids;theywillhelptoloosenthe
mucus.
•coughupthephlegmasoftenaspossible;teach
youngchildrentocoughupphlegmassoonas
theyareableto.
•useahumidifierorvaporiserinthebedroomtofill
theroomwithsteam;thiswillhelpthechestto
expelstickyphlegm.Ifyoudon'thaveavaporiser,
closethebathroomdoorandwindowsandleave
thehotwaterr