 medicine. This young woman had been told
that she had one year to live. Instead, during that year she reversed
the course of her illness and regained health. Zheng Wen Tao is the
epitome of the modern Chine se medical hero, able to unite modern
science with classical tradition. When Efrem returned home, weexpanded our use of herbal medicine in the treatment of our
acupuncture patients, setting up an herbal pharmacy in our
acupuncture clinic. A F OREIGN  CULTURE  PLANTED ON  HOME SOIL
Some people tend to dismiss Chinese medicine for not conforming to
the modern medical model, while others tend to romanticize and
mystify it. Some discount it because it is not modern, others revere
it because it is old. The former group considers it eccentric
quackery, and the latter considers it a panacea. It is clear to us that
it is a system unto itself, altogether distinct from a trendy health fad
or other therapies considere d to be holistic or alternat ive. It has
endured for centuries not only because its techniques produce
tangible result s, but because it embodies a coherent philosophy that
integrates many aspects of human life. Western medicine has had a monopoly not only on our medicine
cabinets, but also on our minds. Now other possibilities exist. More
and more people are receiving acupuncture, so far several million
Americans, and Chinese herbs are nding the way onto their
shelves. Within the next decade medicinal foods will be simmering
in stainless-ste el pots, making the exotic aromas and avors of
China as familiar to us as chicken soup. Americans, like the Chinese,
are quite pragmatic—Chinese medicine meets their need, so people
try it; it helps, so they come back for more. By familiarizing yourself with its concepts, you will be able to
judge if and when it is a tting option for you. Spotting yourself
within its categories will help you better understand your behavior
and feelings, the ways you express your health, and the ways you
fall ill. By the end, we hope you will be able to interpret yourself
amply enough to acquire the rudimentary know-how to initiate
personal change. *Specially dened Chinese medical terms are italicized and capitalized throug hout the text
to dieren tiate them from their commo n meaning, such as heart as an anatom ically located
organ in the chest versus Heart  as an Organ Network, or wind that dances through the trees
versus Wind  that represents an adverse pathological phenomenon. The glossary will assist
in clarication. OceanofPDF.comPhilosophy in the West: The Doctor as MechanicCHAPTER TWO
PHILOSOPHY IN THE  WEST: THE DOCTOR  AS
MECHANIC
Cartesianism is the unspoken philosophical substratum of
contemporary medicine—the source of many of its great
strengths and equally of its deciencies. Pellegrino and Thomasma
A Philosophical
Basis of Medical Practice
BECAUSE OUR PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD INFLUENCES HOW WE LIVE IN it, our
consciousness sculpts reality. Conversely, our experience shapes our
thinking, so our reality molds consciousness. Our minds create what
is real, and our lived experiences generate our thoughts. There is a
reciprocity between beliefs and observations—what we look for
aects what we see, so describing “just the way things are” from the
Chinese and Western vantage  point is not necessarily the same. Each
makes sense of the body according to a dierent set of beliefs. It became clear to us that to penetrate Chinese medicine we
needed to examine how reality itself was dened, East and West. Because taken-for-granted assumptions are buried just beneath the
skin of our conscious awareness, in this chapter we peel that skin
back to expose our Western philosophic presumptions about how
things are. Upon understanding ourselves, we can approach the
unfamiliar and proceed to probe the East on its own terms. SCIENCE. THE NEW RELIGION OF THE  WESTDuring the Middle Ages, people in Western Europe had a unied
view of their universe: seeing themselves as an integral part of
everything that was both seen and unseen. They were connected
with Heaven through God and with Earth through Nature. The
break with this organic sensibility came with the decline of feudal
society as cities grew where there were once feudal kingdoms. As
the pervasive authority of the Roman Catholic church was
undermined by the Protestant Reformation, the people of Europe
believed they could attain mastery in the world through their own
willful eorts. No longer were they solely dependent on the spiritual
community of the Church. In the Christianity of this new era, the realm of Heaven existed
outside of Nature, apart from it, barely within human reach. Earth
and Heaven were divided into separate realms. The dark, sinister,
mysterious forces of Earth were juxtaposed with the enlightened,
righteous, and supernatural forces of Heaven. Instead of being an
ally, Nature became an adversary to be overcome and conquered. Man stood outside of it, apart from and above it. The Earth was no
longer intimat ely connected to the life of our own body, instead it
became an object that could be manipulated and exploited. Human
beings were the battleground  in which Man and Nature,  good and
evil, spirit and body, wrestled with each other. A unied reality was
sacriced for dominion over Nature, for technology, for “progress.”
A schism occurred between the sacred and the secular, Heaven
and Earth, life and death. Before this, with God for protection and
guidance, it was unnecessary to question and understand Nature. But without divine providence, the unpredictable chaos of Nature
was perceived as forbidding and dangerous. Death, associated with
the dark forces, became irreconcilable with life, rather than an
inevitable transition in the cycle of existence. The best protection
against Nature  was through domination and control: to gain power
over Nature was to conquer death. 1 A new set of values and beliefs
was created to explain and organize the world. This new “religion”
was that of science, and its priests were the mathe maticians,
physicists, and mechanical engineers. 2DESCARTES:  NATURE AND THE  BODY AS MACHINE
In the West the philosophy of science is based on the premise that
humans are separate from nature, and that the world, like a
machine, can be dismantled and reduced into constituent parts. Reality is located in the tangible structure of matter: that which can
be measured, quantied, and analyzed. Events occur according to
unchanging laws. The foundation for this scientic thinking was
buried in the soil of Aristotle’s “empirical materialism,” excavated
during the Renaissance. With Aristotle, reality came to mean that
which could be substantiated materially. Matter was understood to
be xed and unchanging, therefore real. In the seventeenth century, the French mathematician Descartes
ushered in the Western scientic revolution. His introduction of
analytic, reduc tive reasoning formed the basis of a new philosophy
of science, which became the philosophy of modern medicine as
well. His think ing had such profound inuence that the principles
underpinning modern science came to be referred to as Cartesian. Descartes believed there could be absolute, certain truth,
commenting, “All science is certain, evident knowledge. We reject
all knowledge which is mere ly probable and judge that only those
things should be believed which are perfectly known and about
which there can be no doubts.” 3 Through the use of reduc tive,
deductive logic, Descartes felt on the verge of comprehending the
fundamental workings of the universe. He conceptualized the world
and everything in it as a machine, stating, “I do not recognize any
dierence between the machines made by craftsmen and various
bodies that nature alone composes.” 4 Mechanical laws were said to
universally govern all phenomena. The exact sciences formulated to
dominate and control nature were applied to human beings as well. Descartes considered the human body a machine, likening a healthy
man to a well-made clock. He also erected a rm division between
mind and matter, asserting, “There is nothing in the concept of body
that belongs to the mind; and nothing in that of mind that belongs
to the body.” 5This mechanis tic view of nature led to the xed and absolute
physical laws devised by astronomer and mathemetician Isaac
Newton, which  outlined the cause-and-eect method of explaining
the material universe. This logic formed the basis of the scientic
method, which  even today remains essentially unchanged. Perhaps
unaware that many logical systems of knowledge exist, most
Westerners consider this to be the only valid way of understanding
the world. Within this worldview, nature and humans are machines
governed by mechanical laws: systems that do work, tools of
production. Western medicine, correspondingly, is the study of how
the human machine works. When people are like machines, doctors
become like mechanics. The mechanic occasionally performs routine
maintenance but mostly intervenes to execute emergency repairs. He plunges into the working parts, replacing the nonfunctioning
elements, and puts the mach ine back into


 Lung, Spleen, and Kidney Organ Networks. The
Triple-Burner, along with the Pericardium, is not associa ted with an
anatomical entity. The Triple-Burner  corresponds with the three
main body cavities—pelvis, abdomen, and chest—and the function
of transporting  uids and integrating the activities of all the other
Organ Networks. Turbid. Refers to the coarse, unrened elements of food and uid as
they pass through the organism in the process of ingestion,
digestion, assimilation, and elimination. The Small Intestine  and the
Kidney  are primarily responsible for transmitting the impure
elements of food and uid respectively to the Large Intestine  and
Bladder. Turbid  also refers to the pathogenic alteration of clear or
pure substanc es such as mucus, blood, bile, and urine, which
become foul-smelling, cloudy, viscous, and dirty in appearance.Type. According to Five-Phase  thinki ng, there are ve primary
congurations that express the innate qualities and tendencies (body
and mind) of human individuals. Each of these types— Wood, Fire,
Earth, Metal, Water— can be further dierentiated into an
exaggerated  or collapsed  subtype. Typology. A system for classifying individuals according to sets of
criteria that distinguish one class of people from another. Thus,
there are typologies based on categories of race and ethnicity,
composition of blood, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs,
personality traits, physical structure, and so on. In the context of
Chinese medicine, people can be dierentiated into ve primary
types based on sets of criter ia that correspond to the categories of
the Five Phases, including physical shape, mental and emotional
habits of perception and response, behavioral tendencies, and
physiological patterns of activity. Vaporize or Precipitate. Refers to the integrative, transformative, and
distributive function of the Triple-Burner  in cooperation with the
Lung, Spleen, and Kidney in regulating the upward and downward
movement of Qi and Moisture. As Qi move s downward it
“precipitates” from a diuse vapor to a dense uid. As Qi moves
upward the reverse process of “vaporization” occurs. There is moist
exhaled breath above and urine below. Water Decoction. Extracting the useful ingredients from herbs by
cooking them in water as medicinal tea. Usually one half to two
ounces of raw herbs are cooked in four to six cups of water in a
covered vessel  for thirty to sixty minutes, at the end of which the
liquid is strained out and the solid material discarded. Wind. Characterized by aversion to drafts, sudden changes, spasms,
disequilibrium, tears, migratory pains, dizziness, trembling, itching,
headache, stuy nose, scratchy throat, and numbness.Yang. Litera lly, “the sunny side of the mountain”; one of the two
fundamental polar forces that organize the universe. Yang manifests
as form, light, noise, warmth, activity, and birth. It includes the
functional activity of the body, and the generation of metabolic
heat. Yang Organs  (Fu). Also known as the “hollow organs” that transform
matter, liberate its essence, transport substance, and discharge
waste. The Yang Organs  are the Gallbladder, Small Intestine, Stomach,
Large Intestine, and Urinary Bladder. The Gallbladder  receives and
discharges bile; the Small Intestine  receives and transports digestate;
the Stomach  receives and transforms food and uids; the Large
Intestine  receives and discharges solid waste; and the Bladder
receives and discharges liquid waste. Yang Phenomena. Heat, dryness, activity, growth, expansion,
dispersion, fullness, sudden, acute: when Yang decreases, Yin
dominates; lack of Yang generates Cold and Dampness. Yin. Literally, “the shady side of the mountain”; one of the two
fundamental polar forces that organize the universe. Yin manifests
as substance, darkness, quietness, coldness, inertia, and death. It
includes the material substance of the body, which includes tissue,
blood, uid, and internal secretions. Yin Organs  (Zang). Also known as the “solid organs” that store the
Essences  of the body. The Yin Organs  are the Liver, Heart, Spleen,
Lung, and Kidney. Palpable Essence  is manifest in each of these
Organs  respectively as tears, sweat, saliva, mucus, and sexual
secretions. Yin Phenomena. Coldness, wetness, quiescence, deterioration,
contraction, congelation, emptiness, slow, chronic: when Yin
decreases, Yang dominates; lack of Yin generates Heat and Dryness.Yin-Yang. Mutually interdependent polar forces; the principle of
duality that fundamentally organizes the universe. Yin-Yang
symbolizes that interactive process that characterizes life. Wholly
relative designations. OceanofPDF.comHERB NAMES CROSS REFERENCE
OceanofPDF.comB IBLIOGRAPHY
Achterberg, Jeanne. Imagery and Healing. Boston: Shambhala, 1985. Augios, Robert, and Georg e Stanciu. The New Biology  Boston:
Shambhala, 1987. Bateson, Gregory. Mind and Nature. New York: Bantam, 1979. ——. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine, 1972. Becker, Robert. The Body Electric. New York: William Morrow, 1985. Bensky, Dan, and Andrew Gamble. Chinese Herbal Medicine, Materia
Medica. Seattle, Wash.: Eastland, 1986. Berman, Morris. The Reenchantment of the World. Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1981. Blofeld, John, ed. I Ching. New York: Dutton, 1965. Bloomeld, Frena. Chinese Beliefs. London: Arrow Books, 1983. Bohm, David. Wholeness and the Implicate Order. London: Ark, 1980. Bowers, John Z., Jay William Hess, and Nathan Sivin. Science and
Medicine in Twentieth-Century  China: Research and Education. Ann
Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 1988. Butt, Gary, and Frena Bloomeld. Harmony Rules. London: Arrow
Books, 1985. Campbell, Joseph. The Inner Reaches of Outer Space. New York:
Alfred Van Der Marck, 1985. Cannon, Walter. The Wisdom of the Body. New York: Norton, 1939. Capra, Fritjof. The Turning Point. New York: Bantam, 1982.<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Still, it was the determinati on of my Wood, the discipline of my
Metal, the enthusi asm provided  by my Fire, and the solitary
reectiveness of my Water  that enabled me to produce  a book. The
scholarship and originality spring from my coauthor’s well of Water ;
the commitme nt to connect with the reader comes from my Earth. Earth  is a good friend, parent, and organizer—able to listen, serve,
satisfy needs, and resolve problems. My friends and patients
appreciate my faithful willingness to immerse myself in their aairs
and lavish them with my focused attention. I can imagine  myself tting better into a provincial village in
another era when I would have worn an apron over wide hips in a
household teeming with children. My home would have been
located at the crossroad of this hamlet so that everyone could pass
through my kitchen on their way to somewhere else. As peopleemptied their pockets of troubles, I would dish out generous
servings of soup, administer instant counsel, oer matchmaking
services, and settle disputes judiciously. Amber sunlight would
splash onto my table and ripple from it into the community. And
everyone who, for better or worse, was born in that valley would
also die there. I would have been pleased with the security, the
togetherness, even the predictable boredom. I would relish the still
point while nomads would pass through and tell stories of faraway
lands. The insights of Chinese medicine can nurse our sense of ourselves,
our awareness, at the same time as acupuncture and herbs can
promote our direct experienc e of integration. Meredith asked me to
make a house call-she needed help and was too weak to move. Besieged with unremitting nausea and vomiting, she was unable to
hold down plain water, let alone solid food, and she wanted to
avoid hospitalization and intravenous feeding. She had an
inoperable tumor that had spread to her bones, and her legs and
hips were in extreme pain. A combination of acupuncture
treatments, an herbal fomentation on her abdomen, powdered
ginger under her tongue, and rectal injections of herb broth halted
the nausea and vomiting within


quite
different? A:	They	are	decidedly	and	altogether	different. One	might	say	that	one	is
transcendent,	and	the	other	is	considered	paranormal. An	out-of-body
experience	can	arise	at	any	time,	even	in	sleep	or	dreams. It	is	often
triggered	by	physical	calamity	or	illness,	such	as	an	accident	or	surgery. In
the	out-of-body	experience,	there	is	location,	position,	and	duration. An
almost	invisible	energy	body	leaves	the	physical	body	and	travels	to	a
different	location	in	the	room	or	perhaps	even	at	some	distance. Sensory
awareness	accompanies	the	energy	body	and	stops	being	associated	with
the	physical	body,	which	is	then	experienced	as	being	separate. The	sense
of	‘I’	is	also	associated	with	the	energy	body	and	not	the	physical	body. Eventually,	there	is	a	returning	of	the	energy	body	to	the	physical	body
and	life	resumes	as	before. This	adventure	is	recallable	and	often	related	to
other	people. The	calibrated	level	of	consciousness	of	the	individual	does
not	change	significantly. The	personality	does	not	change;	however,	there
may	be	a	dawning	that	the	‘I’	is	not	just	a	physical	body. In	contrast,	the	near-death	experience	is	not	local	in	setting. One	enters
a	much	grander	and	more	splendid	domain. An	infinite,	radiant	love	is
always	present. There	is	a	distinct	awareness	that	a	state	of	revelation	is
occurring,	and	calibrated	levels	of	consciousness	show	a	sharp	increase. One	sign	of	the	experience	is	that	the	personality	changes	and	results	in
transformation. These	changes	are	often	quite	noticeable. Often,	there	is	a
major	shift	of	attitudes	and	diminished	interest	in	worldliness. The	fear	of
death	disappears. There	may	even	be	a	shift	of	vocation. Generally,	there
is	an	attraction	to	spiritual	subjects	as	well	as	a	marked	lessening	in	the
level	of	overall	fear. This	is	reflected	in	greater	peacefulness,	grace,	and
the	replacement	of	negative	attitudes	by	positive	ones. The	transformation
of	personality	may	be	quite	profound	in	some	cases. In	others,	it	could
only	be	aptly	described	as	saintliness. Some	people	who	have	theseexperiences	become	healers	and	are	drawn	to	the	healing	professions	or
ministries. Q:	What	spiritual	practices	are	practical	to	pursue	in	a	busy	world? Most	people	have	jobs,	families,	and	many	distractions. A:	The	conscious	pursuit	of	spiritual	goals	is	the	result	of	a	choice	and	a
decision. It	actually	requires	only	willingness	and	the	capacity	to	follow
through. Even	a	simple	spiritual	concept	is	a	deceptively	powerful	tool. The	simple	decision	to	be	kind,	forgiving,	and	compassionate	to	all	life	in
all	its	expressions,	including	one’s	own	self,	is	a	scalpel	that	is	capable	of
removing	the	major	impediments	to	spiritual	progress. With	humility,	one	can	see	that	the	mind	is	limited	and	incapable	of
seeing	all	the	circumstances	surrounding	any	event. Out	of	this	arises	the
willingness	to	let	go	of	condemnation	and	judgment. This	process	results
in	a	willingness	to	surrender	one’s	experience	of	the	world	to	God. It
becomes	apparent	that	the	world	does	not	really	need	one’s	personal
opinions	about	anything	at	all. If	one	decides	to	take	a	charitable	view	of
life’s	events,	then	alternate	ways	of	interpreting	circumstances,
appearances,	and	other	options	open	up. Q:	The	Buddha	said	that	desire	is	the	source	of	the	ego. How	does	one
overcome	this	attachment? A:	There	is	a	meditation	we	might	call	“What	for?”	When	we	note	a	desire,
we	can	ask,	“What	for?”	The	answer	is	always,“…and	then	I’ll	be
happier.”	Thus,	the	locus	of	happiness	is	always	something	that	is	outside
oneself	and	in	the	future. This	results	in	viewing	oneself	as	the	victim	of
outer	circumstances. This	is	also	a	projection	of	one’s	power. The	possible
source	of	happiness	is	actually	coming	from	within. There	is	neither	time
nor	locus	of	happiness	other	than	at	this	very	instant. The	true	source	of	joy	and	happiness	is	the	realization	of	one’s
existence	in	this	very	moment. The	source	of	pleasure	always	comes	from
within,	even	though	it	is	occasioned	by	some	external	event	or	acquisition. In	any	one	instant	of	time,	no	such	thing	as	a	problem	can	exist. Unhappiness	arises	from	going	beyond	the	reality	of	the	Now	and	creating
a	story	out	of	the	past	or	the	future	that,	because	neither	exists,	has	no
reality. Q:	What	are	some	other	useful	tools? A:	There	is	another	meditation	we	could	call	“What	if,	and	then	what?”	This
exercise	is	based	on	the	willingness	to	surrender	the	ego’s	illusions	to	thereality	of	God. We	start	with,	“What	if	we	let	go	of	something	we	desire	or
value?”	and	ask,	“And	then	what?”	That	brings	up	the	next	obstacle. We
ask	if	we	are	willing	to	surrender	it	to	God,	which	brings	up	the	next
obstacle. Eventually,	the	willingness	to	surrender	every	illusion	that
happiness	is	‘out	there’	brings	an	awareness	that	one’s	existence	from
moment	to	moment	is	solely	by	the	grace	of	God. One’s	life	is	sustained	as
a	function	of	the	presence	of	God,	and	the	materiality	that	we	thought
sustained	it	is	in	itself	an	expression	of	God’s	will	for	us. One’s	own
efforts	to	sustain	life	is	a	‘given’	and	not	a	personal	invention. The	ego
thinks	we	survive	in	spite	of	God’s	will	rather	than	because	of	it. Q:	Is	spiritual	progress	sudden	or	gradual? A:	There	is	actually	no	contradiction	in	this	question,	which	implies	the
either/or	state	of	duality. Both	conditions	prevail	simultaneously. Seemingly	small	steps	in	spiritual	evolution	often	occur	almost	unnoticed,
but	it	is	the	small	shifts	which	occur	out	of	sight	below	a	mountain	of
snow	that	result	in	an	avalanche. Sudden	leaps	in	consciousness	can	occur
with	no	warning. Therefore,	it	is	best	to	be	prepared	for	such	a	possible
eventuality. Q:	What	about	getting	past	the	great	block	of	the	intellect? A:	This	leap	is	also	made	as	a	result	of	willingness	and	inspiration. Only	four
percent	of	the	world’s	population	is	able	to	transcend	the	consciousness
level	of	500,	the	level	of	Love. Love	approaches	Unconditional	Love	at
level	540,	which	is	the	level	of	Healing. In	the	calibrated	level	of	the	500s,
progress	becomes	clear	and	obvious. The	goal	is	best	described	as
lovingness	towards	all	life	and	dedication	to	its	support. Thus,	in	the	500s,
one	becomes	forgiving,	charitable,	benign,	peaceful,	and	easygoing. One’s
happiness	is	independent	of	external	circumstances	or	events. Judgmentalism	disappears	and	is	replaced	by	desire	for	understanding	and
compassion. The	innate	beauty	and	perfection	of	all	things	begin	to	be
revealed. It	is	common	to	break	into	tears	at	the	extent	of	the	beauty	that	is
apparent	in	all	that	exists. The	recurrence	of	any	thoughts	or	feelings	that
are	less	than	loving	is	experienced	as	painful	or	unwelcome. Q:	What


 oblem is an e xcess of
sympathy for others. “But ther e are pitfalls,” I told her. “Sympathy is a synonym
for compassion. The wor d ‘compassion’ means to suﬀer
with. That’s wher e one must draw the line. Y our sympathy
will be ill-spent if it e xhausts you. It must not overwhelm
you or cause you to feel as bad as the one you sympathize
with,” I said. When it’s valid, compassion is as valuable for the one who
gives it as for the one who r eceives it. A fterwar d, I thought
about how this applies to the self. Inside each of us is a
voice that sits in judgment. Call it a conscience or the
super ego, this voice doesn’t come fr om an outside judge or
parent. But it acts independent, evaluating the worth of who
we ar e and what we’r e thinking. L et’s say you get angry at
someone unjustly and later feel guilty about ﬂying oﬀ the
handle. The judgmental voice in your head says, “Y ou wer e
wrong. Y ou pr obably got yourself in tr ouble, and you
deserve it. ” P erhaps these wor ds ar e helpful in a certain
way. But this judgmental voice is just you; ther efore, in
judging against you, it is actually judging against itself. There is no independent, objective judge inside. The voice
that labels you as wr ong or bad is a ﬁctional character, and
what you’ll notice is that this character never sympathizes. To keep its power over you, it must intimidate you. What would happen if you started to sympathize with
yourself. The inner judge would begin to dissolve. In the
case of this young woman, I sensed that she wasn’t
manipulating her sympathy selﬁshly, as people do when
they say, “ After seeing how badly oﬀ my friend is, I feel
much better about myself. ” Instead, she was letting her
sympathy ﬂow by listening and opening a channel. W e must
do the same for ourselves. Even better if that channel leads
to God. A t its highest, compassion has a healing r ole to play. When you oﬀer sympathy, the woes of another ar e hear d
and passed on to a higher level of awar eness. We’re not talking about r enouncing your conscience. But
when conscience becomes punishing and mak es you feel
unworthy, it has gone too far. It’s time to r elease the
judgment that k eeps you bound inside a nar row self -
conception. In the r ealm of spirit or God—call it what you
will—suﬀering can be healed. Thr ough your sympathy, you
open a channel to the healing powers. Aspir e to be such a
channel. It is one of life’s gr eatest joys, and certainly the
purest. Step 4: Rebuild Y our Emotional Body
As any negative emotion surfaces, you can r eplace it with
something new. I call this r ebuilding your emotional body. We all have a mental image of what a desirable physical
body is lik e—trim, healthy, youthful, fr esh, pleasing to look
at. But we don’t use those qualities with r egard to our
emotions, our “emotional body. ” The emotional body, lik e
the physical body, must be pr operly nourished. It can gr ow
tired and ﬂabby when the same r esponses to the world ar e
repeated over and over. It becomes diseased when e xposed
to toxins and unhealthy inﬂuences. Every time you feel a negative emotion, your emotional
body is e xpressing discomfort, sor eness, fatigue, or pain. Pay attention to these symptoms just as you would to
physical pain and discomfort. If you had a r ock in your shoe,
you wouldn’t hesitate to r emove it. Y et how long have you
endur ed emotional r ocks in your shoe. In many ways, our
priorities should be r eversed. Think of the time and money
spent to avoid aging. W e expend enor mous eﬀort and car e
to mak e sur e that our bodies can be healthy and functional
into advanced old age. Y et ironically, it’s the emotional body
that is immune to aging. Ther e is no r eason for emotionsever to gr ow old, because the sour ce of fr eshness and
renewal is always at hand. Y our emotional body should
remain ener getic, alert, ﬂe xible, and pleasing to e xperience. I think a single phrase, “the lightness of being,” covers all of
these qualities. Childr en naturally feel lightness in their being. They play
and laugh; they for get traumas and bounce back quickly. Whatever they feel quickly comes to the surface. This
carefree period may not last long. Observing a young child
closely, you can see the beginning of tendencies that will
lead to futur e suﬀering, as the shadow teaches its tactics of
projection, blame, guilt, and all the r est. That’s why
rebuilding the emotional body is the best long-ter m strategy
for everyone—your futur e depends on undoing your past. The k ey is to have a vision. Then you can implement your
vision every day. Ther e’s no lack of detailed advice, in this
book and fr om many other sour ces. But without a vision,
even the best advice becomes haphazar d and piecemeal. A vision for r ebuilding the emotional body includes at least
some of the following points:
Becoming mor e whole
Learning to be r esilient
Dispelling the demons of the past
Healing old wounds
Expecting the best and highest for yourself
Adopting r ealistic ideals
Giving of yourself
Being gener ous, especially with your spirit
Seeing thr ough your fears
Learning self -acceptance
Communicating with God or your higher selfThe most important single thing in r ebuilding your
emotional body is becoming mor e whole. Emotions can’t be
reshaped in iso lation. They mer ge and blend with thoughts,
actions, aspirations, wishes, and r elationships. Every feeling
you have invisibly moves outwar d into your envir onment,
aﬀecting the people ar ound you and ultimately society and
the world at lar ge. Having work ed with thousands of people
over the years, I’ve come to see that without wholeness, all
we can cr eate is superﬁcial change. Ther efore, let’s see if
we can appr oach your life as one r eality, a pr ocess that
encompasses every thought and action you have ever had
or will have. This may sound rather overwhelming, but to escape the
fog of illusion, the only way out is r eality. In truth ther e is
only one r eality. You have no way of separating yourself
from it. Nor would you wish to once you see the enor mous
advantage of living in wholeness. Y our separate self, which
has such a huge personal stak e in the world, isn’t who you
really ar e. In fact, it may be a total illusion, which is what
the Buddha said. The self you defend every day as your
unique point of view is a convenient ﬁction that mak es the
ego feel good. What the ego doesn’t r ealize, however, is
that it would feel even better if it gave up its nar row, selﬁsh
stake in the world. When that happens, the true self can
emer ge. Then and only then is wholeness possible. A NEW REALITY, A NEW POWER
Wholeness over comes the shadow by absorbing it. Evil and
wrong-doing ar e no longer isolated. Earlier I mentioned that
damaging the ecosystem is an e xample of how misbehavior
can be denied and swept under the carpet. But as attitudes
change, we’ve discover ed that the ecosystem is totally
interconnected. Everyone’s behavior aﬀects everyone else. There is no part of the planet that can be isolated, as ifimmune to ecological har m done by other parts. Wholeness
changes our entir e perspective. Now e xpand the wor d “ecosystem” to a br oader conte xt. Wholeness must e xpand to tak e account of the laws that
contr ol pollution, social battles over global war ming,
personal attitudes about r ecycling, and ultimately our very
way of being happy. Can we continue to be happy with a
way of life that is slowly destr oying the natural world. Everything you can possibly think of is encompassed by the
ecosystem. It is the web of r elationships in which we all
exist. If you understand the web of r elationships as an
invisible place wher e everything comes together, you begin
to see wholeness wher e divisions once e xisted. In the cur rent debate over the envir onment, two paths lie
open. W e can continue to deny the pr oblem


rients. These	nutrients	feed
the	60	to	100	trillion	inhabitants	(cells)	of	the	body. Each	cell	is,	in	itself,	a	microscopic
city	of	immense	complexity,	with	billions	of	chemical	reactions	per	second. To	sustain	the
incredibly	diverse	activities	of	all	the	cells	of	the	body	without	disruption,	the	liver	must
supply	them	with	a	constant	stream	of	nutrients,	enzymes,	and	hormones. With	its	intricate
labyrinth	of	veins,	ducts,	and	specialized	cells,	the	liver	needs	to	be	completely
unobstructed	in	order	to	maintain	a	problem-free	production	line	and	frictionless
distribution	system	throughout	the	body. The	liver	is	the	main	organ	responsible	for	distributing	and	maintaining	the	body’s
“fuel”	supply. Furthermore,	its	activities	include	the	breaking	down	of	complex	chemicals
and	the	synthesis	of	protein	molecules. The	liver	acts	as	a	cleansing	device;	it	also
deactivates	hormones,	alcohol,	and	medicinal	drugs. Its	task	is	to	modify	these
biologically	active	substances	so	that	they	lose	their	potentially	harmful	effects—a	process
known	as	detoxification. Specialized	cells	in	the	liver’s	blood	vessels	(Kupffer	cells)	mop
up	harmful	elements	and	infectious	organisms	reaching	the	liver	from	the	gut. The	liver
excretes	the	waste	materials	resulting	from	these	actions	via	its	bile	duct	network. A	healthy	liver	receives	and	filters	3	pints	of	blood	per	minute	and	produces	1	to	1.5
quarts	of	bile	every	day. This	ensures	that	all	the	activities	in	the	liver	and	in	the	rest	of	the
body	run	smoothly	and	efficiently. Obstructive	gallstones	greatly	undermine	the	liver’s
ability	to	detoxify	any	externally	supplied	and	internally	generated	harmful	substances	in
the	blood. These	stones	also	prevent	the	liver	from	delivering	the	proper	amounts	ofnutrients	and	energy	to	the	right	places	in	the	body	at	the	right	time. This	upsets	the
delicate	balance	in	the	body,	known	as	“homeostasis,”	thus	leading	to	disruption	of	its
systems	and	undue	stress	on	its	organs. A	clear	example	of	such	a	disturbed	balance	is	an	increased	concentration	of	the
endocrine	hormones
estrogen
	and
aldosterone
	in	the	blood. These	hormones,	produced	in
both	men	and	women,	are	responsible	for	the	correct	amount	of	salt	and	water	retention. When	stones	congest	the	gallbladder	and	the	liver’s	bile	ducts,	these	hormones	may	not	be
sufficiently	broken	down	and	detoxified. Hence,	their	concentration	in	the	blood	rises	to
abnormal	levels,	causing	tissue	swelling	and	water	retention. Most	oncologists	consider
elevated	estrogen	levels	to	be	the	leading	cause	of	breast	cancer	among	women. In	men,
high	levels	of	this	hormone	can	lead	to	both	excessive	development	of	breast	tissue	and
weight	gain. Over	60	percent	of	the	American	population	is	overweight	or	obese. Men,	women,	and
children	in	this	condition	suffer	mainly	from	fluid	retention	(with	relatively	minor	fat
accumulation). The	retained	fluids	help	trap	and	neutralize	noxious	substances	that	the
liver	can	no	longer	remove	from	the	body. This	helps	the	overweight	or	obese	person	to
survive	a	major,	possibly	fatal,	toxicity	crisis	such	as	a	heart	attack,	septic	poisoning,	or
massive	infection. The	side	effect	of	fluid	retention	in	the	tissues,	however,	is	that	it
causes	these	toxins	and	other	harmful	waste	matter	(metabolic	waste	and	dead	cell
material)	to	accumulate	in	various	parts	of	the	body	and	further	congest	the	pathways	of
circulation	and	elimination. Wherever	in	the	body	the	storage	capacity	for	toxins	and
waste	is	exceeded,	symptoms	of	illness	begin	to	occur. Cleansing	the	liver	and	gallbladder	from	all	accumulated	stones	(see
Figures	1a
	and
1b
)
helps	to	restore	homeostasis,	balances	weight,	and	sets	the	precondition	for	the	body	to
heal	itself. The	liver	cleanse	is	also	one	of	the	best	precautionary	measures	you	can	take	to
protect	yourself	against	nearly	every	kind	of	illness,	known	or	unknown. Figure	1a
:	Flushed-out	gallstones

Figure	1b
:	Flushed-out	gallstones

If	you	suffer	any	of	the	following	symptoms,	or	similar	conditions,	you	most	likely
have	numerous	gallstones	in	your	liver	and	gallbladder:
Low	appetite
Food	cravings	Digestive	disorders
Diarrhea
Constipation
Clay-colored	stool
Hernia
Flatulence
Hemorrhoids
Dull	pain	on	the	right	side
Difficulty	breathing
Liver	cirrhosis
Hepatitis
Most	infections
High	cholesterol
Pancreatitis
Heart	disease
Brain	disorders
Duodenal	ulcers
Nausea	and	vomiting
A	“bilious”	or	angry	personality
Depression
Impotence
Other	sexual	problems
Prostate	diseases
Urinary	problems
Hormonal	imbalances
Menstrual	and	menopausal
disorders
Problems	with	vision
Puffy	eyes
Any	skin	disorder
Liver	spots,	especially	those	on
the	back	of	the	hands	and
facial	area
Dizziness	and	fainting	spells
Loss	of	muscle	tone
Excessive	weight	or	wasting
Strong	shoulder	and	back	pain
Pain	at	the	top	of	a	shoulder
blade	and/or	between	the
shoulder	blades
Dark	color	under	the	eyes
Morbid	complexion
Tongue	that	is	glossy	or	coated
in	white	or	yellow
Scoliosis
Gout	Frozen	shoulder
Stiff	neck
Asthma
Headaches	and	migraines
Tooth	and	gum	problems
Yellowness	of	the	eyes	and	skin
Sciatica
Numbness	and	paralysis	of	the
legs
Joint	diseases
Knee	problems
Osteoporosis
Obesity
Chronic	fatigue
Kidney	diseases
Cancer
Multiple	sclerosis	and
fibromyalgia
Alzheimer’s	disease
Cold	extremities
Excessive	heat	and	perspiration
in	the	upper	part	of	the
body
Very	greasy	hair	and	hair	loss
Cuts	or	wounds	that	keep
bleeding	and	refuse	to	heal
Difficulty	sleeping,	insomnia
Nightmares
Stiffness	of	joints	and	muscles
Hot	and	cold	flashes

	The	Importance	of	Bile

As	already	mentioned,	one	of	the	liver’s	most	important	functions	is	to	produce	bile,	about
1	to	1.5	quarts	per	day. Liver	bile	is	a	viscous	yellow,	brown,	or	green	fluid	that	is	alkaline
(versus	acidic)	and	has	a	bitter	taste. Without	sufficient	bile,	most	commonly	eaten	foods
remain	undigested	or	partially	digested. For	example,	to	enable	the	small	intestines	to
digest	and	absorb	fat	and	calcium	from	the	food	you	eat,	the	food	must	first	combine	with
bile. When	fat	is	not	absorbed	properly,	it	indicates	that	bile	secretion	is	insufficient. The
undigested	fat	remains	in	the	intestinal	tract. When	undigested	fat	reaches	the	colon	along
with	other	waste	products,	bacteria	break	down	some	of	the	fat	into	fatty	acids	or	excrete	it
with	the	stool. Since	fat	is	lighter	than	water,	having	fat	in	the	stool	may	cause	it	to	float. When	fat	is	not	absorbed,	calcium	is	not	absorbed	either


 of love. 2. RESIST ANCE
“Faithlessness is not lack of faith but faith in
nothing. ”
A Course in Miracles  tells us that ‘ther e is no such thing as a
faithless person. ’ F aith is an aspect of consciousness. W e
either have faith in fear or we have faith in love, faith in the
power of the world or faith in the power of God. We’ve basically been taught that it’s our job as
responsible adults to be active, to be masculine in natur e—
to go out and get the job, to tak e contr ol of our lives, to tak e
the bull by the hor ns. W e’ve been taught that that’s our
power. We think we’r e powerful because of what we’ve
achieved rather than because of what we ar e. So we’r e
caught in a Catch-22: we feel powerless to achieve until we
already have. If somebody comes along and suggests that we go with
the ﬂow, maybe lighten up a little, we r eally feel hysterical. After all, we’r e total underachievers as is, as far as we can
see. The last thing we can imagine doing is becoming any
more passive than we alr eady ar e. Passive ener gy has its own kind of str ength. P ersonal
power r esults fr om a balance of masculine and feminine
forces. P assive ener gy without active ener gy becomes lazy,
but active ener gy without passive ener gy becomes
tyrannous. An over dose of male, aggr essive ener gy is
macho, contr olling, unbalanced, and unnatural. The pr oblem
is that aggr essive ener gy is what we’ve all been taught to
respect. W e’ve been taught that life was made for
quarterbacks so we e xalt our masculine consciousness,
which, when untemper ed by the feminine, is har d. Therefore, so ar e we—all of us, men and women. W e’ve
created a ﬁght mentality. We’re always ﬁghting for
something: for the job, the money, the r elationship, to get
out of the r elationship, to lose weight, to get sober, to get
them to understand, to get them to stay, to get them to
leave, and on and on. W e never put away our swor ds. The feminine, sur render ed place in us is passive. It
doesn’t do anything. The spiritualization pr ocess—in men as
well as women—is a feminization pr ocess, a quieting of the
mind. It is the cultivation of personal magnetism. If you have a pile of ir on shavings and you want to
arrange them in beautiful patter ns, you can do one of two
things. Y ou can use your ﬁngers and try to ar range the tiny
pieces of ir on into beautiful, gossamer lines—or you can buy
a magnet. The magnet will attract the ir on shavings. It
symbolizes our feminine consciounessness, which e xerts its
power thr ough attraction rather than activity. This attractive, r eceptive, feminine aspect of our
consciousness is the space of mental sur render. In Taoist
philosophy, “ yin” is the feminine principle, r epresenting the
forces of the earth, while “ yang” is the masculine principle,
representing spirit. When God is r eferred to as “ He,” then all
mankind becomes “She. ” This isn’t a man-woman issue. Reference to God as masculine principle in no way impinges
on feminist conviction. Our feminine self is just as important
as our masculine. The right r elationship between male and female principle
is one in which the feminine sur renders to the masculine. Surrender is not weakness or loss. It is a powerful
nonresistance. Thr ough openness and r eceptivity on the
part of human consciousness, spirit is allowed to infuse our
lives, to give them meaning and dir ection. In Christic
philosophical ter ms, Mary symbolizes the feminine within
us, which is impr egnated by God. The female allows this
process and is fulﬁlled by sur rendering into it. This is not
weakness on her part; it is str ength. The Christ on earth is
father ed by God, and mother ed by our humanness. Thr ough
a mystical connection between the human and divine, we
give birth to our higher Self. 3. GIVING UP RESUL TS
“You will never lose your way for God leads you. ”
When we sur render to God, we sur render to something
bigger than ourselves—to a universe that knows what it’s
doing. When we stop trying to contr ol events, they fall into a
natural or der, an or der that works. W e’re at r est while a
power much gr eater than our own tak es over, and it does a
much better job than we could have done. W e lear n to trustthat the power that holds galaxies together can handle the
circumstances of our r elatively little lives. Surrender means, by deﬁnition, giving up attachment to
results. When we sur render to God, we let go of our
attachment to how things happen on the outside and we
become mor e concer ned with what happens on the inside. The e xperience of love is a choice we mak e, a mental
decision to see love as the only r eal purpose and value in
any situation. Until we mak e that choice, we k eep striving
for results that we think would mak e us happy. But we’ve all
gotten things that we thought would mak e us happy, only to
ﬁnd that they didn’t. This e xternal sear ching—looking to
anything other than love to complete us and to be the
source of our happiness—is the meaning of idolatry. Money,
sex, power, or any other worldly satisfaction oﬀers just
temporary r elief for minor e xistential pain. “God” means love, and “ will” means thought. God’s will,
then, is loving thought. If God is the sour ce of all good, then
the love within us is the sour ce of all good. When we love,
we ar e automatically placing ourselves within an attitudinal
and behavioral conte xt that leads to an unfoldment of
events at the highest level of good for everyone involved. We don’t always know what that unfoldment would look lik e,
but we don’t need to. God will do His part if we do ours. Our
only job in every situation is to mer ely let go of our
resistance to love. What happens then is up to Him. W e’ve
surrender ed contr ol. W e’re letting Him lead. W e have faith
He knows how. There’s a myth that some people ar e mor e faithful than
others. A truer statement is that in some ar eas, some of us
are mor e sur render ed than others. W e sur render to God
ﬁrst, of course, the things we don’t r eally car e that muchabout anyway. Some of us don’t mind giving up our
attachment to car eer goals, but ther e’s no way we’r e going
to sur render our r omantic r elationships, or vice versa. Everything we don’t car e that much about—ﬁne—God can
have it. But if it’s r eally, r eally important, we think we better
handle it ourselves. The truth is, of course, that the mor e
important it is to us, the mor e important it is to sur render. That which is sur render ed is tak en car e of best. T o place
something in the hands of God is to give it over, mentally, to
the pr otection and car e of the beneﬁcence of the universe. To keep it ourselves means to constantly grab and clutch
and manipulate. W e keep opening the oven to see if the
bread is baking, which only ensur es that it never gets a
chance to. Wher e we have an attachment to r esults, we tend to
have a har d time giving up contr ol. But how can we know
what r esult to try to achieve in a situation when we don’t
know what’s going to happen tomor row. What do we ask
for. Instead of, “ Dear God, please let us fall in love, or
please give me this job,” we say, “ Dear God, my desir e, my
priority is inner peace. I want the e xperience of love. I don’t
know what would bring that to me. I leave the r esults of this
situation in your hands. I trust your will. May your will be
done. Amen. ”
I used to feel I couldn’t aﬀor d to r elax because God had
more important things to think about than my life. I ﬁnally
realized that God is not capricious, but is rather an
impersonal love for all life. My life is no mor e or less
precious to Him than is anyone else’s. T o sur render to God is
to accept the fact that He loves us and pr ovides for us,
because


; leave the
situation or accept it. All else is madness. Ordinary uncon sciousness is always linked in some way with denial of
the Now. The Now, of course, also implies the here. Are you resisting
your her e and now. Some peo ple would always rather be somewhere
else. Their “here” is never good  enough. Through self-observation, find
out if that is the case in your life. Wherever you are, be there totally. If
you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you
have thr ee options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or
accept it  totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must
choose one of those three options, and you must choose no w. Then
accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic
pollution. Keep your inner space clear. If you take any action — leavin g or changing your situation —  drop the
negativity first, if at all possible. Action arising out of insight i nto what
is required is more ef fective than action arising out of negativity. Any act ion is often better than no action, especially if you h ave been
stuck in  an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least
you learn something, in which  case it’ s no longer a mistake. If you
remain stuck, you learn nothing. Is fear preventing you from taking
action. Acknowledge the fear, watch it, take your attention in to it, be
fully present with it. Doing so cuts the link between the fear and your
thinking. Don’ t let the fear rise up into your mind. U se the power  of the
Now. Fear cannot prevail against it. If there is truly nothing that you can do to change your here and now, and
you can’ t remove yourself from  the situation, then accept your here and
now totally by d ropping all inner resistance. The false, unhappy  self that
loves feeling miserable, resentful, or sorry for itself can then no longersurvive. This is called surrender. Surrender is not weakness. There is
great st rength in it. Only a surrendered person has spiritua l power. Through surrend er, you will be free internally of the situation. Y ou may
then fin d that the situation changes without any ef fort on your part. In
any case, you are free. Or is there som ething that you “should” be doing but are not doing it. Get up and do it now. Alternatively, completely accept your inactivity,
laziness, or passivity at this mo ment, if that is your choice. Go into it
fully. Enjoy it. Be as lazy or inactive as you can. If you go into it fully
and con sciously, you will soon come out of it. Or maybe yo u won’ t. Either way, there is no inner conflict, no resistance, no negativity. Are you  stressed. Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is
reduced to a means of getting there. Stress is caused by being “here” but
wanting to be “ there,” or being in the present but wanting to be in the
future. I t’ s a split that tears you apart inside. T o create and live with such
an i nner split is insane. The fact that everyone else is doing it doesn’ t
make it any less insane. If you have to, you can move fast, wor k fast, or
even run, without projecting yourself into the future and without
resisting the present. As you mo ve, work, run — do it totally. E njoy the
flow of ener gy, the high ener gy of that moment. Now you are n o longer
stressed, no longer splitting y ourself in two. Just moving, running,
working — and enjoying it. Or y ou can drop the whole thing and sit on a
park ben ch. But when you do, w atch your mind. It may say: “Y ou should
be working. Y ou are wasting time. ” Observe the mind. Smile at it. Does the past ta ke up a great deal of your attention. Do you fr equently
talk and  think about it, either po sitively or negatively. The great things
that you have achieved, your adventures or experiences, or your victim
story an d the dreadful things tha t were done to you, or maybe what you
did to someone else. Are your thought processes creating guilt, pride,
resentment, anger, regret, or self-pity. Then you are not only reinforcing
a false sense of self but also helping to accelerate your body’ s aging
process by creating an accumulation of past in your psyche. V erify this
for y ourself by o bserving those around you who have a strong tendency
to hold on to the past. Die to the past every moment. Y ou don’ t need it. Only refer to it when it
is ab solutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this mo ment andthe fullness of Being. Feel your presence. Are you worried. Do you ha ve many “what if” thoughts. Y ou are
identified with your mind, which is projecting itself into an imaginary
future si tuation a nd creating fear. There is no way that you can cope with
such a situation,  because it does n’ t exist. It’ s a mental phantom. Y ou can
stop this health-and life-corroding insanity simply by acknowledging the
present moment. Become aware of your breathing. Feel the air flowing
in an d out of your body. Feel y our inner ener gy field. All that you ever
have to deal wi th, cope with, in real life — as opposed to imaginary
mind projections — is this moment. A sk yourself w hat “problem”  you
have rig ht now, not next year, to morrow, or five minutes from no w. What
is w rong with th is moment. Y ou can always cope with the Now, but you
can never cope with the future — nor do you have to. The answer, the
strength, the right action or the resource will be there when you  need it,
not before, not after. “One da y I’ll make it. ” Is your g oal taking up so much of your attention
that you  reduce the present mom ent to a means to an end. Is it taking the
joy out of your doing. Are you  waiting to start living. If you develop
such a mind pat tern, no matter what you achieve or get, the pre sent will
never be  good enough; the future will always seem better. A perfect
recipe for permanent dissatisfaction and nonfulfillment, don’ t you agree. Are you a habitual “waiter”. How much of your life do you spend
waiting. What I call “small-sca le waiting” is waiting in line at the post
of fice, in a traf fic jam, at the airport, or waiting for someone to arrive, to
finish w ork, and so on. “Lar ge-scale waiting” is waiting for the next
vacation, for a better job, for the children to grow up, for a truly
meaningful relat ionship, for success, to make money, to be imp ortant, to
become enlightened. It is not un common for people to spend the ir whole
life waiting to start living. W aiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future;
you don ’ t want the present. Y ou don’ t want what you’ve got, and you
want w hat you haven’ t got. W ith every kind of waiting, you
unconsciously c reate inner conflict between your here and no w, where
you don ’ t want to be, and the projected future, where you wa nt to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you lose the
present. There is nothing wrong with striving to improve your life situation. Y ou
can imp rove you r life situation, but you cannot improve your life. Life is
primary. Life is your deepest inner Being. It is already whole, complete,
perfect. Y our life situation co nsists of your circumstances and your
experiences. Th ere is nothing wrong with setting goals and st riving to
achieve things. The mistake lies  in using it as a substitute for the feeling
of life, for Bein g. The only poin t of access for that is the Now. Y ou are
then like an ar chitect who pays no attention to the foundation of a
building but spends a lot of time working on the superstructure. For example, many people are w aiting for prosperity. It cannot come in
the f uture. When you honor, ack nowledge, and fully accept your present
reality —  where you are, who you are, what you are doing righ t now —
when yo u fully accept what you  have got, you are grateful for what you
have got, grateful for what is, grateful for Being. Gratitude for the
present moment and the fullness of life now  i s true prosperity. It cannot
come in  the future. Then, in tim e, that prosperity manifests for you in
various ways. If y ou are dissa tisfied with what you have got, or even frus trated or
angry ab out you r present lack, th at may motivate you to become  rich, but
even if you do m ake


bowel syndrome, leaky gut syndrome, and other intestinal difficulties do
show positive reactions when the Gerson Therapy is made the patient’ s
treatment plan. Refer ences for Chapter Seventeen
1
McPhee, S.J. ; Schroeder, S.A. “General approach to the patie nt; health
maintenance & disease prevention; & common symptoms.” In Curr ent
Medical Diagno sis and Treatment),  36th ed., ed. by L.M. Tierney, S.J. McPhee, and M.A. Papadakis. Stamford, Conn.: Appleton & Lange,
1997, p. 14. 2
Bishop, B. A Time to Heal: Triumph over Cancer: The Therapy of the
Futur e. New Y ork: Penguin Putnam, 1985. 3
Schauss, A. Diet, Crime and Delinquency. Seattle, Wash.: Life Sciences
Press, 1988. 4
Karam, J.H. “Diabetes mellitus  & hypoglycemia.” In Curr ent Medical
Diagnosis and Treatment),  36th ed, ed. by L.M. Tierney, S.J. McPhee,
M.A. Papadakis. Stamford, Conn.: Appleton & Lange, 1997, pp. 1069-
1109. 5
Kumar, P; Clark, M. Clinical Medicine. London: Balliere Tindall
Publishing, 1994, pp. 830-831. 6
Op. cit.,  Karam, J.H., p. 1090. 7
Ibid.,  Karam, J.H., p. 1096. 8
Pottenger, F Cats, a Study in Nutrition. San Diego, Calif.: Price Pottenger
Nutrition Foundation, 1983. OceanofPDF.comPart Four
USING THE GERSON APPROACH
OceanofPDF.comChapter Eighteen
PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACHES OF THE GERSON THERAPY
Gerson patients bear an extra heavy psychological burden. Often, they
come to the Gerson Therapy after having run the gauntlet of some difficult-
to-accept orthodox treatments. These establishment-type therapies offered
in North America are frequently adversely extensive, somewhat unpleasant,
uncomfortable, and sometimes life-threatening. The patient usually will
have already drained his financial resources, squandered his immunity, and
made heavy demands on his emotions. Such a situation happens  because of
a patient’ s need to go through frequent diagnostic laboratory procedures,
frightening clinical examinations, anxiety-driven biopsies, and numbers of
other upsetting medical or psychological experiences. The cancer patient especially is often traumatized by a widespread belief
that nothing much can be done to conquer cancer. And that view may be
true in many cases, judging from the high mortality rates accompanying
most forms of allopathic chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Even the newly accepted immunotherapy has its unwelcome pitfalls. From the conventional viewpoint, a patient may be led to believe that in the
end, cancer is unbeatable. The cancer patient and his or her family may arrive at the Gerson
treatment facilit y depressed and, in many instances, taken over by a range
of negat ive feelings, including worry, grief, fear, sadness, anger, irritability,
and self-centeredness. Even for these depressed, anxious, and generally
unfortunate people, the Gerson Therapy of fers healing and hope. We have  observed that other patients who strive to employ the Gerson
procedures at an earlier, less-damaged stage often have fewer difficulties
overcoming their lack of wellness. Receiving Gerson Therapy sooner rather
than later is better for achieving healing and health maintenance. Either way, the two types of unhappy patients, early attendees and later
arrivals, embark on the unfamiliar Gerson treatment outside the bounds oforthodox medicine. Consequently, they do face a long, demanding,
monotonous, and lonely labor, with strong hope and determination, but with
no guarantee of success at the end. Psychological aspects do play a role in
the healing process, and either the standard or the modified Gerson protocol
will provide some procedural guidelines. PSYCHOLOGICAL  ASPECTS OF THE  GERSON  THERAPY
Because of cancer ’s life-threatening nature, patients beset by malignant
neoplasms in particular and those who suffer from other chronic diseases
progress faster and more comp etently toward healing when they receive
psychological support. An important factor of the Gerson Thera py is that its
several detoxification aspects have excellent effects on the patient’ s
outlook. The inherent toxicity of the standard American diet (SAD) and
lifestyle tends to bring toxins into the blood and general systemic
circulation. These poisons also reach the brain and tend to affect the mind
by increasing anxiety, depression, fear, panic, and more. Just starting with the detoxification of the Gerson Therapy, in a few days
the patients improve considerab ly, feel more confident, and exhibit greater
emotional stability. Nevertheless, we are advocates of additional
psychotherapeutic help whenever available. Dr. Gers on once  stated that more human beings die of panic than from
cancer. The body involves but one part of the illness. When the sickness also
produces fear, the combination causes a systemic accumulation of more and
more toxins in the body and a quickening of physiological deterioration. A
better understanding of fear and the other negative emotions and what they
do to someone on the mend is essential. Inasmuch as our every human thought and emotion equals a biochemical
act, the science of psychoneuro immunology tells us that feelings, moods,
and gene ral outlook affect each person’ s immune system. It is boosted by a
hopeful, determined outlook and undermined by a despairing, helpless
attitude. If the truth be known, any cancer diagnosis equals mental and
emotional trauma with reactions  ranging from despair and panic to apathy
or rage, all of them powerful negative perturbations of the conscious mind. These emotions hamper the affected individual’ s immunity to a
malignancy’ s deadly attack.Since the aim of Gerson perso nnel is to rebuild the diseased  patient’ s
damaged immu ne system, psychological factors must not be allowed to
sabotage physical healing. A holistically oriented therapist dispels mental
and emotional (psychic) nega tivity in order to reinforce the physical
(somatic) immunity. If you are working on your own as the patient or as a
caregiver for such a patient without the support of a Gerson hosp ital setting,
our advice is to focus your healing procedures on handlin g negative
emotions. They are destructiv e and must be eliminated. The patient’ s
traumatized negative inner state must be reprogrammed and turned positive. “No attempt should be made to cure the body without [curing] the soul,”
wrote Plato nearly 2,400 years ago. Body and mind are inseparable; they
sicken together and must be healed together. Otherwise, chances for success
in regaining health will be greatly lessened. Neither the Gerson program nor
any other therapeutic method will work effectively if somet hing in the
patient’ s consciousness keeps saying no to life. Indeed, negative  emotions have a devastating effect upon the function of
the body, and especially the nervous system. The stressful experiences
arising from negative emotions cause unhealthy stimulation of the
autonomic or involuntary division of the nerves, including both the
sympathetic and parasympathe tic branches. Blood pressure, heart rate,
respiration rate, and oxygen consumption are increased. Glucose is
needlessly used up. Kidney filtration, gastrointestinal secretions, and
activity are decreased, affecting  digestion and the release of body wastes
and toxins. Insomnia, fatigue, loss of appetite, listlessness, avoidance, and
boredom are observed in the patient. All of these physical faults manifesting themselves in the autonomic
nervous system must be diluted and countered to the point of eliminating
them. How may somebody do that for himself or herself? How might a
therapist help the patient to neutralize such negative physiological
responses? The renowned author Norman Cousins, Ph.D., furnished his
readers with substantial healing  tools when, in his best-selling Anatomy of
an Illness,  he described how positive emotions are powerful mobilizers for
the patient’ s natural healing resources. EMPHASIS  ON POSITIVE  EMOTIONS AS  POWERFUL  HEALING  TOOLSPositive emotions are powerful  weapons in the unwell individual’ s war
against disease. Laughter, courage, tenacity, love and consideration for
others, and a connection to the patient’ s own understanding of spirituality
are all positive passions or sentiments. Dr. Cousins wrote:

Increasingly, in the medical press, articles are being
published about the high cost of the negative emotions. Cancer, in particular, has been connected to intensive states
of grief or anger  or fear. It makes little sense to suppose that
emotions exact only penalties and confer no benefits. At any
rate, long before my own serious illness, I became convinced
that creativity, the will to live, hope, faith, and love had
biochemical significance and contribute strongly to healing
and to well-being. The positiv e emotions are life-giving
experiences.1

The French physicist and Nobel laureate Marie Curie, Ph.D., stated,
“Nothing in life is


 the separation happened millions of years ago; the problem is that
we reenact it in any moment that we close our hearts. It is the chronic
spiritual sickness of humankind, the endless repetition of unloving thoughts
that dominate the world. For the mind is so powerful that what we think, we
manifest. There  is only one problem, and there is only one solution. We
think we have many different problems, but we really only have one: our
separation from love. The original moment of loveless thought was the birth of the ego (the
word used here the way it was used by the ancient Greeks: the notion of a
small, separated  self). The ego is only a belief  that we are separate, yet
belief is very powerful. From that one false belief an entire world of
lovelessness came into being. Two separate worlds, like two parallel universes, would from that
moment coexist. One world is peopled by separate bodies who have forgotten who we
are and forgotten we are one with each other. Our bodies are physical
manifestations of the thought that we are separate. Freud defined neurosis
as “sepa ration from self.” We perceive this world with our physical senses:
our eyes see, our ears hear, our hands touch. But while the physi cal world is
real within our three dimensions, three-dimensional reality itself is not what
it appears to be. It is but a vast matrix of illusion manufactured by the
human mind, not to illuminate but in fact to hide a world that lies beyond it. A parallel world, unseen by the physical eye, is an eternal indestructible
reality. It is God’ s ocean of endless light, love, and understanding, eclipsed
by the ego’ s thought system that now dominates the world. We straddle two universes, attac hed to one while yearning for the other. We live in a world of separate bodies, on a hamster ’s wheel of fear-based
thought and behavior, pervers ely guided by the false belief that our
separateness is our identity, without which we cease to exist. The thought that we are separ ate has led us to believe that we are
separate from God, separate from each other, separate from the universe,separate from the earth, separa te from the animals, even separate from
ourselves. This thought system violates and invalidates, torments and
destroys us, making us mental slaves to its dictatorial insistenc e that we’re
not who we are and that we are who we are not. Beyond all that is our spiritual Reality. It is the indestructible realm that
God created, within which we are one and where our souls know that we’re
at home. OceanofPDF.comThe Holy Spirit
So here we have  been, lost in the illusion of separateness, experiencing
ourselves as alone in a meaningless universe when we ourse lves are its
meaning. Literally from the beginning of time, we have enacted and
reenacted the drama created by this first mistaken thought. God, being perfect Love, has the answer to every problem the moment
the problem occurs. The ego having responded to God, God responded right
back. Into the darkness there appeared a light. What would perfect Love do, in response to the fact that we had
opposed it? Would it force us back to the thought of love? No, because
Love does not force. Would it punish us for thinking without love? No, because Love does
not punish. God wouldn’ t force us to return our minds to love, for that would be a
violation of our free will. We are free to think whatever we choose to think. But in the instant the ego appeared, God created an Alternative, a place in
our consciousness that would guide us back to love should we so choose. This guide, a gentle bridge of perception from fear to love, is called,
among other things, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the eternal communication link between us and God,
the reconnecting  link to our right mind. Created by God, the Holy Spirit is
therefore eternal and will remain in our minds forever. The Holy Spirit also
goes by the name of Internal  Teacher, Comforter, Shekhinah, Thought
Adjuster, and more. From the Holy Spirit comes God’ s greatest gift: a flood
of loving thought with the power to override our fearful perceptions and
bring us inner peace. Jesus was, and is, a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Fear is to love what darkness is to light, not a thing but the absence of a
thing. Just as we get rid of darkness by turning on the light, we get rid offear by replacin g it with love. Fear is the darkness of the mind; the Holy
Spirit, the Light of the World. While the Holy Spirit was creat ed literally millions of years ago, there
lived a man two thousand years ago (the Course  says he is not the only one)
who actualized the mind of the Holy Spirit, eliminating from his
consciousness all thoughts but those of love. He thus became one with the
Holy Spirit, and to call on one is to call on the other. He is the light in the
presence of which darkness cannot be. This light has many names, and Jesus is one. The mystic Jesus is a
purveyor of the Holy Spirit, a way of calling down the Holy Spirit’ s power
within our morta l existence. We do not see Him with our physical eyes, but
we see the ef fects of His power and we know that He is there. Jesus cannot save us from the effects of our thinking, for the Law of
Cause and Effect was created by God for our protection and is therefore
inviolable. He works with us on the causal level, helping us to choose our
thoughts more wisely. Every instant we choose what to think, either consciously or
unconsciously. Thoughts of love bring inner peace, because when we think
with love we are being ourselves. Thinking without love, we are nullifying
our own existen ce. The awareness of our oneness is heaven and the torment
of the ego is hell—not places we go to after we die, but emotional states
right here right now. God doesn’ t send us to hell; He is What delivers us from it. All of us are
tempted at times to deviate from  love, just as Jesus was. Through the grace
of God he rose above the tempt ation. Now he is authorized to help us rise
above ours. All of us have days when for whatever reason we’re discombobulated. In today’s world, things are moving at an unnaturally quick pace. While it
wasn’ t very long ago that our ancestors lived their lives according to the
rising and setting of the sun, today’ s social media environment seems to
have quickened time itself. Our nervous systems literally were not made for
this. Of course we are tempted. Of course we fall. Our civilization needs repair. We need repair. We cannot simply numb or
suppress the pain of living in a world so at odds with who we are. The
world is going to have to change; civilization is going to have to correct its
course. But for any of that to happen, we’re going to have to change
ourselves first.OceanofPDF.comThe Atonement
The Atonement is the correction of our perception, placed within us by
God as an eternal escape route from fear. Through the Atonement, we can
undo the conseq uences of our lovelessness, as we recognize our errors and
ask God’s help in choosing another way to think. All Abrahamic religions,
as well as other s, contain the principle of Atonement, for it is fundamental
to perso nal and collective transformation. We cannot go forward in life
without correctin g our hearts, and this is as true for a nation and a species as
it is for an individual. The Atonement, empowered by nothing short of the
infinite love and the power of God, bestows upon us full relea se from the
insanity of the world we have created, and deliverance to the one that He
did. The Atonement, however, takes  more than a simple “Oops, I shouldn’ t
have done that.” Any Catholic in sincere confession, or Jew in tears on Yom
Kippur, or addict at an Alcoholi cs Anonymous meeting, admitting the exact
nature of their wrongs, has touched the zone of deep contrition where we
recognize we have transgressed and we wish to transgress no more. When we do, something genuinely miraculous happens. Something
changes on a causal level. We fall to our knees, if not literally then
figuratively. And everything begins again. That is where the world is now, or perhaps it is truer to say it’s where
we need to be now: not attacking others, blaming others, playing victim, or
making the problem about someone else. We need to look within ourselves
for the problem, and within ourselves for the answers. We need to forgive
ourselves and others. For that is where God is, and that is where  the Answer
lies. The Atonement principle heals every heart that is open to it. When we
are willing to go back to the moment when the mistake was made, to take
full responsibilit y for the fact that in that moment we did not allow the HolySpirit to guide our perceptions and our behavior, we can choose again. We
can put the mom ent into the hands of the Holy Spirit


 reality of the state assumed. As you remain fait hful in your
mental attitude, your prayer will be answered. Prayer therapy  is a
definite mental action for a definite specific purpose. Let us suppose that you decide to heal a certain difficulty by p rayer
therapy. You are aware that your problem or sickness, whateve r it
may be, must be caused by negative thoughts charged with fea r and
lodged in  your subconscious mind, and that if you can succeed in
cleansing your mind of these thoughts, you will get a healing. You, therefore, turn to the healing power within your own
subconscious mind and remind yourself of its infinite power and
intelligence and its capacity to heal all conditions. As you dwe ll on
these truths, your fear will begin to dissolve, and the recoll ection of
these truths also corrects the erroneous beliefs. 64  You give thanks for the healing that you know will come, and then
you keep your mind off the difficulty until you feel guided, after an
interval, to pray again. While you are praying, you absolutely refuse to
give any power to the negative con-ditions or to admit for a second
that the healing will not come. This attitude of mind brings ab out the
harmonious union of the conscious and subconscious mind, which
releases the healing power. • Faith healing, what it means, and how blind faith works
What is popularly termed faith healing is not the faith me ntioned in
the Bible, which means knowledge of the inter-action of the consci ous
and subconscious mind. A faith healer is one who heals without any
real scientific understanding of the powers and forces involved. He
may claim that he has a special gift of healing, and the sick  person’s
blind belief in him or his powers may bring results. The voodoo doctor in South Africa and other parts of the world may
heal by incantations, or touching the so-called bones of saints, or
anything else may heal a person, which cause the patients to hones tly
believe in the method or process. Any method, which causes you to move from fear and worry to faith
and expectancy, will heal. There are many persons, each of  whom
claims that because his personal theory produces re-sults, i t is,
therefore, the correct one. This, as already explained in thi s chapter,
cannot be true. To illustrate how blind faith works: You will recall our dis-c ussion
of the Swiss physician, Franz Anton Mesmer. In 1776 he claimed
many cures when he stroked diseased bodies with artificial  magnets. Later on he threw away his magnets and evolved the theory of anima l
magnetism. This he held to be a fluid, which pervades the univer se,
but is most active in the human organism. He claimed that this magnetic fluid, which was going forth from
him to his patients, healed them. People flocked to him, and many
wonderful cures were affected. 65  Mesmer moved to Paris, and while there the Government appointed
a commission composed of physicians and members of the Academy
of Science, of which Benjamin Franklin was a member, to investi gate
his cures. The report admitted the lead-ing facts claimed by Mesmer, but held
that there was no evidence to prove the correctness of his mag netic
fluid theory, and said the effects were due to the imaginat ion of the
patients. Soon after this, Mesmer was driven into exile, and died in 1815. Shortly afterwards, Dr. Braid of Manchester undertook to show that
magnetic fluid had nothing to do with the produc-tion of the hea lings
of Dr. Mesmer. Dr. Braid discovered that patients could be thrown
into hypnotic sleep by suggestion, dur-ing which many of the well -
known phenomena ascribed to mag-netism by Mesmer could be
produced. You can readily see that all these cures were undoubtedly broug ht
about by the active imagination of the patients together wi th a
powerful suggestion of health to their subconscious minds. All thi s
could be termed blind faith, as there was no understand-ing in those
days as to how the cures were brought about. • Subjective faith and what it means
You will recall the proposition, which need not be repeated a t
length, that the subjective or subconscious mind of an indi-vidua l is as
amenable to the control of his own conscious or objective mind as  it is
by the suggestions of another. It follows that whatever may b e your
objective belief, if you will assume to have faith activ ely or passively,
your subconscious mind will be controlled by the suggestion, and your
desire will be fulfilled. The faith required in mental healings is a purely subjective  faith,
and it is attainable upon the cessation of active oppositi on on the part
of the objective or conscious mind. 66  In the healing of the body it is, of course, desirable to se-cur e the
concurrent faith of both the conscious and subconscious mind. However, it is not always essential if you will enter int o a state of
passivity and receptivity by relaxing the mind and the body a nd
getting into a sleepy state. In this drowsy state your pa ssivity becomes
receptive to subjective impression. Recently, I was asked by a man, “How is it that I got a heali ng
through a minister? I did not believe what he said when, he told me
that there is no such thing as disease and that matter does not exist.”
This man at first thought his intelligence was being in-sult ed, and he
protested against such a palpable absurdity. The explanation i s simple. He was quieted by soothing words and told to get into a perfectly
passive  condition, to say nothing, and think of nothing for the tim e
being. His minister also became passive, and affirmed quietl y,
peacefully, and constantly for about one half hour that this man would
have perfect health, peace, harmony, and wholeness. He felt immens e
relief and was restored to health. It is easy to see that his subjective faith had been made m anifest by
his passivity under treatment, and the suggestions of perfect
healthfulness by the minister were conveyed to his sub-conscious
mind. The two subjective minds were then en rapport. The minister was not handicapped by antagonistic auto-suggesti ons
of the patient arising from objective doubt of the power of the healer
or the correctness of the theory. In this sleepy, drowsy state the
conscious mind resistance is reduced to a minimum, and results
followed. The subconscious mind of the patient being necessarily
controlled by such suggestion exercised its functions in acc ordance
therewith, and a healing followed. • The meaning of absent treatment
Suppose you learned that your mother was sick in New York City
and you lived in Los Angeles. Your mother would not be physically
present where you are, but you could pray for her. It is the Father
within which doeth the work. 67  The creative law of mind (subconscious mind) serves you and wil l
do the work. Its response to you is automatic. Your treatment is for the
purpose of inducing an inner realization of health and harmony in
your mentality. This inner realization, acting through the subconscious mind,
operates through your mother’s subconscious mind as there is but one
creative mind. Your thoughts of health, vitality, and perfection operate through the
one universal subjective mind, and set a law in motion on the
subjective side of life, which manifests through her body as a healing. In the mind principle there is no time or space. It is the sa me mind
that operates through your mother no matter where she may be. I n
reality there is no absent treatment as opposed to present tr eatment for
the universal mind is omnipresent. You do not try to send out thoughts
or hold a thought. Your treat-ment is a conscious movement of
thought, and as you become conscious of the qualities of health, well-
being, and relaxation, these qualities will be resurrected in the
experience of your mother, and results will follow. The following is a perfect example of what is called abs ent
treatment. Recently, a listener of our radio program in Los Angeles pra yed as
follows for her mother in New York who had a coronary thrombosis:
“The healing presence is right where my mother is. Her bodily
condition is but a reflection of her thought-life like shadows ca st on
the screen. I know that in order to change the images on the scre en I
must change the projection reel. My mind is the projection r eel, and I
now project in my own mind the image of wholeness, harmony, and
perfect health for my mother. The infinite healing presence,  which
created my mother’s body and all her organs is now saturating every
atom of her being, and a river of peace, flows through every cell of her
body. The doctors are divinely guided and directed, and whoever
touches my mother is guided to do the right thing. I know that dise ase
has no ultimate reality; if it had, no one could be healed. I now align
 68  myself with the infinite principle of love and life, and I know and
decree that harmony, health, and peace are now being expressed in my
mother’s body.”
She prayed in the above manner several


 or 3weeks)   PRICE
Postpaid by Air Mail

1 Copy $4.00 each   $4.40 each   $4.52 each
2 Copies 3.45 each 3.85 each 3.97 each
3 Copies 3.25 each 3.65 each 3.77 each
4 or more 3.00 each 3.40 each 3.52 each
8 or more 2.75 each 3.15 each 3.27 each
12 or more 2.60 each 3.00 each 3.12 each
The shipping weight is 4 ounces each. Special prices can be quoted on larger quantities for gifts and educational purposes. An order blank from back of page 48 must  be used for these special prices to be
applied. Otherwise, the advertised pric e of $4.50 per copy, postpaid, will apply. Additional order blanks will be sent free on request. ORDER FROM:
   Magnolia Laboratory, Dept. F, P. O. Box 1306, Pascagoula, Miss. 39567
  PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION
   Thousands with the good sense and will power to change their eating habits say they have been
greatly helped by the discoveries described in this now-famous booklet, and are enjoying good health
again. They say they have cleansed their arteries, avoided surgery, and become free of anginal pain in
the chest and legs. Circulation in the head and neck have improved so as to clear up dizziness and ear
noises, and enhance mental clarity. Likewise, visual disturbances and blackouts have ended. Blood pressure, cholesterol, and tri-glycerides have been  reduced far more effectively than by drugs or low-
cholesterol diets. Many people say they have never before eaten so well, and with so little kitchen
work, yet their weight and figure are improved. They sa y such things as: "I am back to work again", or
"No more standing still while the pain fades". Some are even frank enough to say "Sex is a joy again". Many say their diabetes is controlled without drugs on this diet. Since it is always a pleasure to see
people enjoying the use of one's discovery, these results make all our hard work seem very much
worthwhile. See how it all started, on inside back cover ( at the end of this booklet in the internet
version). THE BASIC CAUSE OF COMMON ARTHRITIS
   It is widely agreed among medical scientists th at common arthritis starts with deterioration of the
synovial membrane. As shown in the drawing on the rear cover, this membrane encloses the moving parts of the joint like a bag. Nature provides this membrane bag containing a clear white lubricating
fluid to keep blood out of the joint space, because the delicate red cells of blood would be quickly crushed between the weight bearing surfaces. Since there is no blood circulation inside the joint space
or in the cartilage, the clear white lubricating fluid must play another role as well, nourishing and
carrying away the wastes of the cartilage as it constantly grows to repair wear and tear. In a healthy joint, the lubricating fluid does this very well by a process called dialysis, by which it interchanges
essential nutritive materials and wastes with the bloodstream coursing through a rich network of tiny
blood vessels in the walls of the bag. The joint fluid is secreted by special cells lining the bag, utilizing
materials taken from the bloodstream, and is thus c onstantly made afresh as required. Excluded from
the life-giving bloodstream, the joint cartilage is entirely dependent on the services of the membrane
bag for its lubrication, nourishment, waste dispos al, and microbic protection by means of the special
joint fluid. If the joint fluid is not thus constantly freshened by interchange with the blood, the cartilage
must starve, weaken, be worn away, and perhaps be come infected by invading microbes. Healthy joints
are to a large degree self-repairing due to the consta ntly growing cartilage, but are sure to deteriorate
when not properly supplied with joint fluid. THE BASIC CAUSE OF COMMON ARTHRITIS
   This diagram shows how a typical joint is enclosed by its
membrane bag, which makes a clear white fluid from blood to
lubricate and nourish the working surfaces. When blood circulation
through the wall of this membrane bag is choked by fatty rubbish from stale food, the joint fluid can no longer be properly made. The
joint is thus starved and begins to  fail. Various forms of arthritis
can then develop from wear and tear, infection, self-repair
reactions, etc. See text page 1. Medical authorities agree that the network of fi ne blood vessels in the membrane bag is subject to
being choked with fatty rubbish the same as other arteries. Also, the fibrous walls of the membrane
resemble the walls of the arteries, and the entire membrane tends to become thickened, hardened, and
deadened in much the same way as arteries are affected. This deterioration of the membrane bag
disturbs its performance in freshening the joint fluid, and the joint cartilage suffers accordingly. As described in authoritative medical textbooks, common arthritis begins with deterioration of the
membrane and consequent disturbance of the joint fluid, followed by a variety of painful and
disfiguring reactions in the joint. When blood circulation in the membrane fails and the joint begins to starve, automatic repair
responses by the body forces are set in motion tryi ng to remove the blockage so nourishment can get
into the starving joint. The membrane may become inflamed, swollen, and painful in trying to throw
off the fatty rubbish. Blood circulation in the pore spaces of adjacent bone also is often partially
choked. Body repair forces eat away portions of this deadened bone, and re-deposit it around the rim of the weakened joint in an attempt at reinforcement. The cartilage may be worn through or eaten away,
so that the bones grate together. With the protecting joint fluid depleted or defective, microbic
infections may develop. These infections may involve microbes of a kind which live by depositing stony minerals like those which deposit tartar (dental calculus) on the teeth, producing formless stony
masses on the bones, sometimes plastering them solidly together. Stone-forming microbes are abundant
throughout the world, depositing masses of rock on the bottom of seas and lakes, and forming the hard rough fouling under commode rims. Authoritative scientific publications take us practically up to this point, and the good news is this:
Fatty rubbish from stale food is the cause of the membrane bag deteriorating, and the Fresh Food Diet
permits it to recover. As the membrane improves, the joint receives nourishment and can begin to
recover. Within a few weeks the swelling and pain begins to fade away. Even people who had no severe arthritis symptoms notice that their shoes and gloves become looser as their joints return to a normal condition. Numerous people with severe arthr itis have reported that their condition has greatly
improved on the Fresh Food Diet, permitting them to go back to work again. This discovery being relatively new, it is too early to predict the extent of improvement possible for joints with severe deformities, bones grown together, etc. Some of these may be helped by surgery after
the disease process has been stopped by improved diet. It has been shown that healthy joints have great
powers of regeneration, and there is good reason to expect extensive self-repair after the membrane bag returns to normal. Even taking a minimum view, there is no doubt that these findings shed new light
upon the basic cause of common arthritis, and offer a practical do-it-yourself method of stopping
further deterioration and reducing pain by diet alone. BLOOD CHOLESTEROL
   When a blood cholesterol test is made during or soon after a rapid loss of weight, it will often show a
temporary increase. This occurs because as the body becomes smaller the blood volume is
correspondingly decreased, so naturally if we have the same total quantity of cholesterol floating in a decreased quantity of blood, the concentration of c holesterol in each drop of blood will be greater. Also, cholesterol previously contained in the fat we have lost has been released into the bloodstream,
causing a further temporary rise in the blood cholesterol number. If weight is lost rapidly, a temporary cholesterol rise should therefore be expected. It must be
remembered that the abnormal cholesterol built up in the blood by eating stale food is a durable material, which cannot be eliminated as rapidly as fat. People going on the Fresh Food Diet often lose
some flabby fat very promptly, and it is important not to be discouraged by a temporary rise in
cholesterol as above described. A few weeks after weight loss stops, the blood cholesterol should start to gradually drop. If it fails to drop fast enough to suit you, double check to be sure you are really
following the diet. Read it over again and check each item you are eating to avoid mistakes. It is better
for weight loss to be slow and gradual, not more than two pounds a week at most. Rapid weight loss can be weakening, and may cause haggard appearance and loose wrinkled skin. (Continued after Table of Contents)
  TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Humans Are Built and Re-built from Food What Does Our Food Contain? What Is Man's Proper Food? Arteriosclerosis, A Disease of Civilization
Stale Food—The True Cause of Arteriosclerosis
Fresh Food—The Cure for Arteriosclerosis
The Cholesterol Theory—A Tragic Blunder Effects of Fresh Food on Humans
Excessive Fatness in Human Beings
Sex


.Teeth decay as soon as they appear. Gumsinflamed and painful (Ferrum Phos). Toothache,which is worse at night (Silicea). Chief remedy in
all teething disorders. “If the gums be pale, this
remedy is especially indicated” (Schuessler). Tongue – Swollen tongue (Kali Mur). Stiff
and numb. Blisters and pimples on tip of thetongue. Throat – Enlargement of the throat. Chief
remedy for goiter (Nat Mur). Chronic enlarge-
ment of the tonsils. “I have given it in the acute
stage, when suffocation threatened, with excel-lent results,” (Chapman, [see: full reference toChapman’s book in the Bibliography]). Glandspainful, aching. Thirst, with dry tongue andmouth. Sticking pain in throat on swallowing. Constant hoarseness. Hemming and scraping ofthroat when talking. (Public speakers are greatlybenefited by this cell salt when alternated withFerrum Phos.) Burning and soreness in larynxand pharynx, in cases of chronic catarrh whenthere is considerable dripping from the posteriornares (postnasal drip).Gastric symptoms – Pain after eating. Food
seems to lie in stomach in a lump. Heaviness
and burning. Pain worse from eating even thesmallest amount of food (Ferrum Phos).Stomach sore to the touch. Abnormally largeappetite, but food causes distress. Cold drinksand food greatly aggravate the pains, while heatrelieves it (Mag Phos). Vomiting after cold
drinks. Faint, sinking feeling in region of stom-
ach. Pain sometimes relieved by belching wind.In infants, vomiting sour, curdled milk (NatPhos). Constant desire to nurse. Stomach feelsbloated. Headache, accompanied with indiges-tion (digestive headache). Belching of gas. Mostof these gastric symptoms are due to non-assim-ilation of food. A course of this remedy shouldbe given after gastric or typhoid fever and in allcases where digestion is poor to aid assimilationof food. Abdomen and stool – Diarrhea in teething
children; stools slimy, green, with undigestedmatter; with colic (Nat Phos). Give a warm-water enema. Cholera infantum, child craves
food it should not eat. Stool is hot, noisy, and
offensive-smelling (Kali Phos). Inability to
properly digest food during the summer.Diarrhea caused from inability to properly digestfood. Face pale and anxious, child fretful. Painin the abdomen near the navel. Infant crieswhen it nurses. Marasmus (failure to thrive),eats heartily but grows more emaciated all thetime. Frequent urge to pass stool but nothing
passes (Kali Phos, Mag Phos). Diarrhea in
young girls, with accompanying headache.Costiveness (constipation), with hard stool, inold people and infants. Itching piles, also pro-truding hemorrhoids (Calc Fluor, FerrumPhos). Hemorrhoids, which ooze a thick, clearsubstance resembling egg whites, especiallynoticeable in anemic persons. Anal fissures and
cracks (Calc Fluor). Fistula without pain. Neuralgia of rectum and pain after stool.Symptoms all worse at night or with change inweather (Silicea). Tabes mesenterica (abdomi-
nal lymph-wasting disease). To prevent the for-mation of gallstones. Urinary organs – Urine dark yellow. Frequent urge to urinate, with sharp, shooting,cutting pains at the neck of the bladder andalong the urethra (Ferrum Phos). Increase in thequantity of urine. Bright’s disease of the kidneys(Kali Phos). Phosphatic deposit in the urine, asan intercurrent remedy. Gravel sediment inurine (Nat Sulph). Diabetes mellitus, as an inter-current remedy. To prevent formation of bladderstones. Calc Phos assists in the breaking down ofprotein that can accumulate in the kidneys. Male sexual organs – Swelling of the testi-
cles (orchitis). Masturbation. Inguinal (groinarea) hernia (Calc Fluor). Itchy, greatly relaxedscrotum. Sweating and soreness of scrotum.Chronic gonorrhea and gleet (chronic inflam-mation of a bodily orifice), when there is thecharacteristic discharge. Dropsy of the testicles.Egg-white-like discharges from the urethra. Female sexual organs – Weakness in uter-
ine region from prolapsed uterus and otheruterine displacements (Calc Fluor, Kali Phos). “Calc Phos may not have the contracting powerof Calc Fluor, by acting directly upon the mus-cles and tissues involved, but it acts indirectly bybuilding up the general health and aiding diges-tion, thereby restoring the tissues to a healthycondition and promoting the deposit of CalcFluor” (Chapman). Aching in the uterus. Increased sexual desire, especially immediatelybefore menstruation. Leucorrhea (white dis-charge from the vagina), with thick, clear, verytenacious discharge. Intercurrently in all cases ofleucorrhea, to build up general health. Acridleucorrhea, worse after menstruation or withsexual excitement. Dullness and listlessness. Inyoung girls with anemic conditions, menses tooearly or too late. Menstrual discharge bright red,too frequent. Menses with pain in back. Labor-like pains at the time of menstruation (Mag
30 FACIAL DIAGNOSIS OF CELLSALTDEFICIENCIESCHAPTER 4: C ALCPHOS 31Phos); to prevent, use Ferrum Phos. Menses,
with flushed face and cold extremities (FerrumPhos). Pregnancy – Aching in the limbs during preg-
nancy. Poor milk, watery or with salty taste (NatMur). Child refuses to nurse. Child vomits sour,curdled milk quite frequently. Sore nipples(Ferrum Phos). After pregnancy, as a restorative;
also after long nursing, when the patient is debil-
itated. Respiratory organs – Cough, with expectora-
tion of clear (not yellow), thick mucus. Chroniccoughing. Incipient consumption (tuberculosis).Intercurrently in all cases for weakness and pros-tration. Chronic cases of whooping cough.Rheumatic pains in lungs. Involuntary sighing. Soreness and dryness of tuberculosis in throat.Aching in the chest. Night sweats, especiallyaround the head (Silicea, Nat Mur). Hawking toclear throat. Cough in anemic persons or teethingchildren. Circulatory organs – Intercurrently in most
cases of heart trouble. Poor circulation, with coldextremities. Palpitation of the heart, followed byweakness. Leukemia (excess of white corpusclesin the blood). Back and extremities – Calc Phos, appropri-
ately named “the bone r emedy,” plays an impor-
tant role in disease located in the back andextremities. Curvature of the spine (used in con-junction with mechanical supports). Numbness
and coldness of the limbs. Pains and aching in
the joints. Cold sensations in the limbs, as if
cold water were being poured over them. Pains
in the bones, especially the shinbones. Painworse at night and in cold, damp weather.Rheumatism of the joints and in the backbetween the shoulders; very severe and worseat night or during rest. Lumbago (Ferrum
Phos). Hydroma patella (swelling of the kneecaps), cysts. Hydrops (swelling). Articular(joint) spinal irritation. Injuries of the coccyx.Infants are slow in learning to walk, and theirbones are soft and friable. Bowlegs (used in con-
junction with mechanical supports). In chil-dren, thin neck (Nat Mur). Broken bones; thissalt is essential to facilitate the deposit of extramaterial necessary for their mending. Rickets:“This disease appears to consist essentially inthe nondeposition of phosphate of lime in theosteoid (bone) tissues” (from Thomas’ Medical
Dictionary, as cited by Dr. Carey. In the case of
syphilis, inflammation of the periosteum (bonecovering). Ulcers and abscesses, when deep-seated on the bones or joints. Neuralgia, whendeep-seated as if on the bone, commencing atnight (Silicea). Pain in limbs, restlessness, limbsfall asleep; better when moving them. Nervous symptoms – Neuralgia, which is
worse at night, colic, cramps, spasms, convul-sions, etc. (take if Mag Phos fails to relieve thesesymptoms). Convulsions in teething children,young girls, and old people, when the lime saltsare deficient. Paralysis, when associated withrheumatism. Fatigue and weariness. Pains very
severe at night, with sensation of creepingnumbness and coldness. Pains shoot all overthe body like electrical shocks and, at othertimes, like trickling cold water. Skin – Eruptions on the skin, when the dis-
charge is thick and clear. Pimples, acute orchronic, with itching.