 gross distortions of our structure
and character. Often our most obvious and dramatic symptoms are
located in the two Phases  along the control or ke sequence. For example, for an Earth  type, disturbances are likely to show up
in Water  (restrained by Earth ) and in Wood  (which restrains Earth ). Exaggerated Earth  oppresses Water  and antagonizes Wood. When the
Spleen  is dominant, Dampness  and the stagnation that occurs with it
inhibit the function of the Kidney  and Liver. An Earth  type might
experience a sore lower back, swollen ankles, and premenstrual
water retention, all indicatio ns of Kidney  disturb ances, along with
fullness in the head and pressure behind the eyes, which reect Liver
disturbance. When Dampness  in the Spleen  hampers the capacity of
the Liver to make decisions and initiate action, a person feels
obsessed with small changes  and decisions and reluctant to commit
to big decisions and their consequences. The eect on the Kidney  is
to create an unsettling feeling of doubt and insecurity, as if one’ssource or identity is never rmly grasped. Thus the characteristic
aability and gregariousness  of the Earth  type may be hemmed in
by an undercurrent of irritability and vulnerability. When diculty or trauma distort our true nature, disharmony
manifests as aberrations of character, disturbances of physiologic
function, and deformations of physical structure. This means that
the behavior of an exaggerated Organ Network  has overwhelmed and
oppressed others or that it has collapsed, its force dissipated,
creating an unstable vacuum. Signs of conict are likely  to appear
along the ke sequence in exaggerated  patterns and within the
predominant Organ Network  and its “moth er” and “child” along the
sheng  sequence in collapsed  patterns. If the predomin ant Organ
Network  is exaggerated, it needs to be subdued; if it is collapsed, it
needs to be nourished. Exaggerated  and collapsed  pattern s can and
often do coexist, as do excess  and deciency, Heat and Cold. Harmony is restored when appropriate therapeutic measures of
tonifying or purging, consolidating or dispersing, restore stability by
easing conict and correcting  inequities. The strategy of caring only
for the leader is not enough when the followers are in distress, nor
is aiding the followers enough to guarantee the prudent behavior of
the leader. Both must be supported or limited according to their
need and their role. When our motion is disturbed by external forces or internal
upheaval, our path becomes crooked and our movement wobbly. Allied with our organizing force, we navigate smoothly  along our
path, our inner gyroscope unperturbed. Spinning freely, we feel
aligned, at home in our body and right with the world. This
comfortable sense of t and freedom is what we recognize as health. Five Phases within Each PhasePowers of the Five Archetypes(see larger image)
Click  to download a PDF of Power of the Five Archetypes
Distortions of Five Powers(see larger image)
Click  to download a PDF of Distortions of Five Powers
Five Types: Anities and Aversions
Anities: Desires and Values(see larger image)
Aversions: Fears and Diculties(see larger image)
Click  to download a PDF of Five Types: Anities and Aversions
Five Types: Challenges, Contradictions, Knots
Earth :
Being at the still point—feeling stuck
Wanting to be full—feeling weighted down, overstued, and
overwhelmed
Seeking emptiness—fearing that there is nothing at the core
Desiring change—wanting things to stay the same
Wanting to be needed—wary of being absorbed, losing the self
Water :
Yearns for truth—fears exposureYearns for connection—intolerant of contact
Likes to be squeezed—scared of being squashed
Wants to penetrate inside—detests being absorbed
Enjoys being left alone—dreads being abandoned
Wood :
Wants to be in charge—misses the companionship of equals
Yearns to do, to act—subject to uncontrollable impulse
Makes rules—likes to break them
Demands freedom—needs to struggle
Feels invincible—fears vulnerability and loss of control
Fire:
Desires contact, intimacy—needs solitude
Loves sensatio n and feeling—fears being overwhelmed by
intensity
Loves to say yes—can’t say no
Yearns for fusion—dreads dissolution
Lives in the moment—dreads the future
Metal :
Wants relationship—needs distance
Knows what is right—accepts what is safe
Aspires toward beauty—settles for utility
Wants joy—fears spontaneityLikes creativity, ingenuity—intolerant of disorder, dissonance
SELF-ASSESSMENT  QUESTIONNAIRE
The following questionnaire is designed to help you map how the
Five Phases  act and interact within you. The letters (?–E) at the end
of each statement refer to each of the Five Phases. Mark the space at
the beginning of each statement according to the strength of your
response. If it strongly typies you, place a “3” in the space; if it
characterizes you somewhat, put a “1”; if you feel ambivalent or
indierent toward it, put a “0.” If you have a denite negative
response (“I’m not at all like this!”), put a “–2.”
When you are nished, total up the number of positive (+) and
negative (–) responses for each section according to the letter code:
total score for “A,” “B,” and so on. Do this before you look at the
code key so that you are not biased in your responses. Record the
number of positive and negative responses on the Five-Phase
diagram at the end of the questionnaire to plot your particular
patterns. Look at the Phases  with the highest positive scores and see
whether they are opposite or adjacent to each other: Wood  and Fire
and Earth  are adjacent, whereas Wood  and Metal, Fire and Water, are
opposite. Adjacent Phases  with high scores reect a strong
supporting (“sheng sequence”) relationship. Opposite Phases  with
high scores reect a strong conicting (“fee sequence”) relationship. Negative scores also suggest conict with an opposing Phase. In this
context, conict is not necessarily good or bad—it represents the
potential for movement and change as well as instability. If all the scores on the diagram look pretty much the same—that
is, if they dier by a value of only 1–3, you may need to go back to
the questionnaire, review your responses, and eliminate those that
are only a “+1.” This will help to accentuate the numerical contrast
between Phases. If there are still no signicant dierences, refer to
the charts at the end of each chapter on the ve types to determinethe set of characteristics with which you identify most strongly. How do these reactions compare with your responses to the
questionnaire? Also, answer the questions at the end of the
questionnaire and see if you can classify your answers as belonging
more to one Phase than another. Whether or not the pattern that emerges now reects your
primary type is a question that you may need to answer upon
further consideration. Eventually a pattern will reveal itself so that
you feel you have a sense of who you are within this paradigm. PSYCHOLOGICAL
It is typical of me (+) or unlike me (–) to:
___ be honest, even blunt, though not necessarily tactful or
diplomatic A
___ be cautious and sensible A
___ enjoy frequent periods of solitude and introspection A
___ enjoy indulging my imagination and curiosity A
___ keep my feelings, thoughts, and opinions to myself A
___ be content being anonymous or on the periphery of social events
A
___ be considered unusual or eccentric A
___ be involved in intellectual pursuits A
___ be content with a few good friends and minimal social activities
A
___ be content guring things out for myself A
___ be careful about what I reveal to other people A
___ be a stubborn defender of the truth as I see it A
___ be patient and persevering in spite of defeats or dead ends A
___ be objective and dispassionate A___ feel self-sucient in or out of a relationship A
___ choose privacy over intimacy, solitude over socializing A
___ be critical and skeptical while observing people and events from
a distance A
___ pursue my own interests regardless of what others consider
important A
___ enjoy projects that don’t involve other people A
___ remove myself from every day aairs and turn inward to quietly
reect upon the place of my life in the grand scheme of things A
___ feel condent and act assertively B
___ enjoy being competitive and ambitious B
___ feel powerful and invulnerable B
___ reluctantly acknowledge other people as my equals B
___ openly discuss my abilities and achievements with others B
___ be comfortable with conict or pressure B
___ enjoy being rst,


 and the other
digestive organs. If it be such material as the gastric juice will
not dissolve, then it must be disposed of by disintegration,
which starts with fermentation. This is the genesis of nearly
all indigestion and intestinal disorders. Fermentation changes food from a life- giving to a life-
destroying substance. It generates a poisonous gas which is
absorbed by the system and which preys upon the red
corpuscles of the blood, lowering the vitality of every organ
of the body. This is only one of the many evils that result from
imperfect mastication. A whole book could be written and the
subject not exhausted—in fact, a very admirable work has
been written by Mr. Horace Fletcher called "The A B Z of
Our Own Nutrition," devoted almost entirely to the subject of
mastication. Under the heading of "Some Pertinent
Questions" he suggests that the reader interrogate himself as
follows: "Were I an iron and steel automobile instead of a
flesh and blood automobile, which I really am, could I get a
license for myself as a chauffeur to run myself with safety,
based upon my knowledge of my own mechanism and the
theory and development of my powers. " Nature refuses to create and keep healthful any part of
the anatomy or member of the body which is not used. Allow
the arm to rest in a sling for a few months, and nature will
cease to feed it, and it will become feeble, emaciated and
almost useless. Nature is a perfect economist. If the teeth are not used,
she will refuse to keep them in repair; she will allow them to
decay. She presumes that you do not need them because you
have refused to put them to that use for which they were
created. So long as people subsist upon soft, cooked, mushy
foods, they cannot expect to have good teeth. This is one of
the greatest arguments against the baneful habit of cooking
and in favor of elementary foods. Nature produces no food that should be swallowed
without mastication, when eaten in its elementary state. She
produces no soup trees, gravy vines, mush plants or cook
stoves. Elementary food must be masticated. Thorough
mastication will develop numerous  flavors in foods that are a
revelation in enjoyment to those who live upon them. The majority of people cheat and dull the keenest sense
of taste and defeat the primary purposes of nature by doing as
others do, viz. : yielding to their hurried environment. The
most delicious flavors of foods are developed by long
mastication, which gives the saliva time enough to act upon their chemical properties and begin the process of changing
and digesting them. For instance, the changing of starch into dextrine and
grape sugar is the first process of digestion; if done by
mastication it develops a most delicious taste. If this most
important function is not performed in the mouth by the act of
mastication, the taste-buds are not only robbed of their rights,
but extra labor is put upon the stomach, and the process of
digestion much retarded and made more difficult. Perfect mastication is the surest means of avoiding the
habit of over-eating, which is  so disastrous to the health and
so common among civilized people. Every pennyweight of
food taken into the stomach more than is necessary becomes
at once a leaden load upon the body. It is converted into a
poison. It so over-burdens the excretory organs that they
become torpid and diseased and Bright's disease,
constipation, and the long train of evils that follow are the
result. Not long since, we dined with some friends whose
knowledge of the culinary art was very highly developed. From memory we made an inventory of the quantity of food
consumed by one of the most advanced disciples of French
cookery; and according to our best calculations if the same
quantity of material had been eaten in its elementary state and
thoroughly masticated it would have taken about thirty-one
hours' continuous chewing to have disposed of the cargo. The only excuse nature offers to man for creating him is
that she gives him liberty and the means of securing his
happiness and contentment. Yet nearly everything he does
with reference to his physical structure seems to be especially
designed to defeat this purpose. There is a great deal of pleasure to be gained from eating,
but when our highly civilized man comes to perform this very
important function, he shovels in the provender with one
hand while he makes out a mortgage or figures per cent. with
the other. The result is that he gets no happiness from the
mortgage or per cent., but a great deal of unhappiness from
the provender; therefore, at the age of forty the majority of
men stand dejected and defeated, while half the amount of
study bestowed upon themselves and the inexorable laws of
nature that they have given to the foibles of fashion or the
fight for food would have brought health and abundant
vitality up to and even beyond the century mark. Old age is the most valuable period of life. When the
strife and chase is ended we st and before our fellows with
accumulated knowledge, with no ambition to serve except the
common good, which should be given to the world in
exchange for what Mother Nature has given to us. FEEDING CHILDREN. THE first year of the baby's existence is the most trying and
hazardous period of its life. The frightful fatality among
children the first year after birth furnishes ample evidence
that something is wrong. The average mother or nurse knows
but little about the few simple la ws that nature has framed to
govern infant life. The greatest of all errors are made in
reference to feeding. The nurse or mother seems to think that
the least outcry or expression of disturbance is a demand or
evidence that baby must be fed, and straightway the place is
searched for something—something sweet —anything that
will temporarily give employment or divert the mind of the
child from its trouble, while in the great majority of cases it is
caused by too much or the wrong kind of food being given. For the first twelve months, or until all the molar teeth
have appeared, a child should take nothing but liquid food. Mother's milk if possible. If this cannot be supplied, then
whole, unsterilized cow's milk is the best substitute. The
practice of boiling or sterilizing milk is positively
mischievous. This subject is treated at some length in our
chapter on milk. Dried or powdered milk and all kinds of "infant foods"
should be religiously avoide d. Putting milk through the
drying process destroys the cellular tissues of the fat globules,
and the butter fat is set free and becomes very difficult of
digestion. Every mother should read Dr. Fischer's "Infant
Feeding," which treats this subject at great length in the most
frank and scientific manner. Dr. Fischer gives the analysis of
"Nestle's Food," which he term s "a farinaceous, dried milk
food. " He shows that this food has not quite one-sixth the
amount of fat, and only one-third the amount of proteids that
is to be found in mother's milk. Over one-half of the proteid
matter has been made insoluble by the drying process.<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>
Q: What is the primary reason for the invention of the telephone and telegraph?,
A: Not mentioned in the text, the text does not discuss the invention of the telephone and telegraph.
Q: What is the author's opinion on the use of condiments?,
A: The author believes that the use of condiments is unnecessary and even harmful, as it can lead to overeating and other health issues.
Q: What is the recommended method of preparing milk for consumption?,
A: The author recommends drinking milk in its natural state, without cooking or sterilization, as the digestive fluids in the body can handle any bacteria that may be present. They also suggest that it is better to start with small amounts and gradually increase as needed.
Q: What is the author's stance on the use of nuts as food?,
A: The author highly recommends the use of nuts as a food source, as they are rich in essential nutrients and do not require cooking, making them a healthy and natural choice.
Q: What is the recommended method for preparing vegetables?,
A: The author suggests that vegetables should not be cooked, but rather masticated (chewed) thoroughly to allow for proper digestion and absorption of nutrients.<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>They contain elements that cannot be
secured elsewhere. When thoroughly masticated, in addition to their
nutritive value, they serve the body as an alimentary
lubricant. No meal can be made complete without some green
plant. CELERY. Wash, trim and scrape the stalks, selecting those that are
white and tender. Should be left in ice-cold water, until they
are wanted, which makes them very crisp. COLD SLAW. There is nothing more delicious or necessary than
shredded cabbage, usually ca lled cold slaw. It possesses
valuable food properties, occ upying the same place in human
diet that hay does in diet of the horse or cow. LETTUCE. Lettuce is undoubtedly the best of salads. Use the tender
leaves only, and put in cold water for at least twenty minutes
before serving, to make them crisp


	of	the	former	self	is	stunned	by	the	massive	revelation	and	the
magnificence	of	the	condition. Everything	is	brilliantly	alive,	and	all	is
One	and	startlingly,	massively	divine. There	is,	however,	also	an	infinite
stillness	and	peace,	a	profound	sense	of	having	at	last	returned	to	one’s
real	home. No	fear	is	possible. What	one	really	is,	is	beyond	all	form	and
always	was	beyond	all	time	and	space. These	realities	are	self-evident. All
thoughts,	ideas,	and	mentations	stop,	and	the	stillness	is	everywhere
present,	all-pervading. The	Self	is	realized	to	be	now	everywhere	instead	of	localized. All
human	activities	and	attitudes	have	ceased. There	is	no	desire	for	anything. All	is	known	and	equally	present	so	there	is	nothing	left	to	know	or	know
about. All	questions	are	answered	so	there	are	none	to	ask. There	is
nothing	to	think	about	nor	would	there	be	a	purpose	to	thinking. All
feeling	disappears	and	is	replaced	by	absolute	peace.<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Most	spiritual	error	contains	a	grain	of	the	truth	that	then	gets	lost
in	misunderstanding	or	manipulated	distortions. “Kill	a	Commie	for
Christ,”	or,	“Kill	an	infidel	for	Allah”	is	very	far	from	spiritual	truth,	but,
generically,	this	type	of	statement	is	accepted	over	and	over	by	millions	of
people	through	endless	generations. Sentimentality	and	emotionalism	are	superimposed	on	fallacious
beliefs,	which	give	them	added	attraction	and	dominance	in	people’s
thinking. Religious	absurdities	gain	momentum	merely	because	they	are
‘religious’. As	an	example,	in	the	year	1212,	a	European	boy	had	a	vision
of	being	called	to	lead	a	children’s	crusade	to	free	the	Holy	Land	from	the
Islamic	infidels. (Why	God	would	be	interested	in	who	governs	what	realestate	on	the	planet	has	never	been	answered. ) The	popular	appeal	of	the
admixture	of	an	‘innocent	child’	with	a	‘religious	vision’	plus	the	heroics
of	‘saving	the	Holy	Land’	resulted	in	a	wave	of	enthusiasm. The	children’s
crusade	was	horrific. They	died	by	the	thousands	from	exposure,
exhaustion,	disease,	malnutrition,	and	other	disasters. Of	the	few	thousand
remaining,	none	actually	reached	the	Holy	Land,	and	all	were	finally
captured	and	sold	into	slavery. The	entire	disaster	was	based	on	belief,
faith,	and	religiosity. However,	as	a	disaster,	it	was	miniscule	in	the	history
of	humanity	in	which	whole	continents,	populations,	civilizations,	and
major	portions	of	human	life	were	wiped	out	by	fallacious	religious	fervor. Thus,	faith	and	belief	are	necessary	to	start	a	journey,	but	verifiable
knowledge	is	necessary	to	complete	it. Without	a	compass	or	sextant,	the
average	sailor	on	the	seas	ends	up	at	the	bottom. As	the	Buddha	said,	“Few	are	they	who	endeavor	to	make	the	journey,
and	fewer	and	rarer	still	are	those	who	succeed. ”	(Krishna	said	the	same
thing	in	the
Bhagavad-Gita. ) The	concern	expressed	here	is	for	the	success
and	welfare	of	all	mankind	whose	history,	until	very	recently,	has	been
quite	tragic. Q:	You	speak	often	of	mankind	as	though	it	was	your	concern	or	identity. Why	is	that. A:	To	own	oneself	completely	is	to	own	all	humanity. The	Self	is	the	same	Self	in	all,	and	society	represents	the	collective
ego. To	look	at	all	mankind	in	its	totality	throughout	history	takes	us
through	the	Scale	of	Consciousness. When	we	look	at	man,	it	brings	on
grief,	sadness,	hopelessness,	depression,	guilt,	remorse,	or	regret. We	see
man	as	being	miserable,	evil,	hopeless,	tragic,	and	frightening. We	feel
anger	at	what	has	transpired	in	the	past. In	Courage,we	see	that	change	for	the	better	is	feasible. We	stop
blaming,	hating,	and	fearing	and	lift	ourselves	out	of	victimhood,
weakness,	and	apathy	and	strive	to	make	the	world	better. We	give	up	self-
blame	and	self-pity	and	affirm	the	power	within	us. To	reach	Truth,	we
have	to	accept	that	mankind	has	been	much	in	error	and	that	the	reason
was	ignorance. Through	understanding,	we	can	learn	to	become
compassionate	and	seek	to	recontextualize	our	relationship	to	the	whole. We	can	look	back	and	see	that	humanity	was	enslaved	and	brutalized
by	the	ignorance	that	prevailed	at	a	consciousness	level	that	calibrated	at
only	190	for	so	many	centuries. However,	at	its	present	207,	the	future	of
mankind	promises	to	be	very	unlike	the	past. Each	of	us	can	progress	in
our	own	level	of	consciousness	to	that	which	supports	life	and	love. Thatis	really	all	that	was	asked	of	us	by	all	the	great	spiritual	leaders	and	saints
of	the	past. Even	Freud	said	that	man’s	destiny	was	to	be	able	to	work	and	to	love. Carl	Jung	then	added,	“and	to	own	the	spiritual	truth	of	one’s	reality. ”
					Because	of	the	limitations	of	perception,	mankind	does	not	see	that	the
Dark	Ages	did	not	even	end	until	1986,	when	the	consciousness	level	of
mankind,	for	the	first	time	in	history,	crossed	over	from	negativity	and
nonintegrity	to	go	above	the	critical	level	denoted	by	the	calibration	level
of	200	into	Integrity,	Honesty,	and	Truth. Q:	Religion	and	spirituality,	then,	did	not	have	a	major	impact	on
society. A:	Man’s	problem	isn’t	that	he	has	not	heard	of	spiritual	truth,	but	that	he
does	not	understand	it. That	is	the	purpose	of	clarification	and	explanation. It	takes	a	whole	volume	of	words	to	explain	that	which	is	wordless. The	value	of	a	numerically	calibrated	map	of	consciousness	with
associated	descriptive	terms	is	that	it	makes	what	might	have	sounded	like
philosophical	or	sociological	generalities	verifiably	concrete. Anybody	can
understand	simple	numbers,	but	few	people,	despite	ostensible	piety,
understand	even	the	simplest	things,	such	as	the	difference	between
positive	and	negative,	‘right’	and	‘wrong’,	or	constructive	versus
destructive. Nonintegrity	is	so	interwoven	in	almost	every	aspect	of	society	that	it
has	become	invisible	to	the	average	person. The	wolf	is	hidden	under	the
sheep’s	clothing	of	patriotism,	righteousness,	and	beliefs	that	“It’s	just
business”;	“The	end	justifies	the	means”;	“Society	deserves	revenge”;
“People	are	best	controlled	by	threat	and	fear”;	“The	war	against	drugs”;
“Greed	is	okay	in	business”;	“Lying	is	okay	by	government	or	business”;
“Pride	is	good”;	“Materialism	and	gain	justify	all	behaviors”;	“It’s	okay	to
distort	or	hide	the	truth	if	you	can	get	a	conviction”;	“Any	deceit	is	okay	to
get	elected”;	“Anything	is	okay	to	print	as	long	as	it


 wher e did this “tendency” come fr om. If God is love
and love only, and God is all-powerful, then how did a
counterfor ce ever come into being. The answer, metaphysically, is that actually it did not. Nothing but God’s love e xists, and in the wor ds of A Course
in Miracles,  “What is all-encompassing can have noopposite. ” The operative r eason for how an illusory world
that actually does not exist but seems so str ongly to exist
came into being is the principle of fr ee will. We can think whatever we want to think. Our thoughts,
however, have power no matter what we think, because our
creative power comes fr om God. The law of cause and eﬀect
guarantees that we will e xperience the r esult of whatever it
is we choose to think. When we think with love, we ar e
cocreating with God and ther efore cocr eate mor e love. When we think without love, however, we manufactur e fear. What that means is that we have split minds. One part of us
dwells in the light, eter nally at one with God’s love. Y et
another part of us—a part most of ten aligned with the
mortal world—dwells in darkness. And that is the shadow
self. God doesn’t see the shadow because, not being love, it
does not actually e xist. Y et being all-love Himself, He
register ed our suﬀering when we fell into the darkness and
provided for us an instantaneous healing. In that moment,
He cr eated a loving alter native to our self -imposed insanity
and fear. This alter native is lik e a divine ambassador that
dwells with us in the world of darkness, always available to
lead us back to light, should we r equest it. This ambassador
has many names, fr om Thought A djuster to the Holy Spirit. For our purposes her e, we will call it the Illuminator. In A Course in Miracles,  it is said that we ar e not perfect or
that we would not have been bor n—but that it is our mission
to become per fect her e. It is our mission to transcend the
shadow and become our true self. The Illuminator acts as a
bridge between our shadow self and our light. It has been
empower ed by God to use all the for ces of heaven and earth
to lead us out of the darkness back into light. It does so ﬁrst
and for emost by r eminding us that the darkness is not r eal. When we ar e lost in the darkness, our gr eatest power lies in
calling on the Illuminator, whose task is to separate truth
from illusion. W e do this thr ough prayer, and thr oughwillingness. “I’m willing to see this diﬀer ently” is a sentence
that gives the Illuminator per mission to enter into our
thought system and lead us fr om insanity back to truth. A few years ago I went to visit a friend, who alr eady had
several close girlfriends at her home when I ar rived. One
woman in the gr oup had a manner of speaking that seemed
to me very grandiose, so much so that every time she spok e
I felt as if someone wer e running ﬁnger nails acr oss a
blackboar d. Obviously my mind was wild with judgment, as I
could not understand how someone could possibly be so
aﬀected in the way she spok e. As a seek er on the path, I knew that the pr oblem was not
with the woman, but within myself—my own lack of
compassion. I inwar dly said a prayer and e xpressed my
willingness to see her diﬀer ently. Almost instantly, or so it
seemed to me, one of the other women in the r oom said to
the woman whom I’d been judging so ﬁer cely, “I hear d your
father is being let out of prison. Is that true. ”
As I listened, I hear d her story unfold. Although I don’t
remember all the speciﬁcs, I do r emember that this woman
had been held captive by her own father thr oughout much
of her childhood in the basement of their home. She had
eventually been r escued, and her father had gone to jail for
many years. Hearing of this woman’s suﬀering, I r ealized
why she spok e the way she did. She literally had no model
of a healthy adult persona gr owing up; she didn’t even know
how to speak in a natural way and was doing her best to
piece together what she consider ed a nor mal personality. The same mannerisms that had ar oused in me such
judgment ﬁve minutes earlier now ar oused in me deep
admiration and compassion. She had not changed, but I
had. In praying, I had called forth the light. The Illuminator
enter ed into the world of darkness and deliver ed me fr om
my shadow self, my judgmental self, by giving me the piece
of infor mation that would r eplace my thoughts of fear with
thoughts of love. And wher e, in this lifetime, had I gotten my tendency to
judge so harshly to begin with. F rom a metaphysical
perspective, I was not bor n with it. W e are not bor n in
original sin, or er ror, but in fundamental and primal
innocence. I seem to have a very powerful birth memory. I can’t know
of course whether it’s actually true, but I’ve had it for as
long as I can r emember. I even r emember seeing the light
ﬁxtur e that hangs over operating tables, which adds to my
feeling that this might be true. A ccording to the memory, I
came into this world with an inﬁnite amount of love to give,
beyond anything I’ve allowed myself to feel since. But this was in 1952, when doctors still thought they wer e
supposed to slap newbor n babies to get them to br eathe. So
just as I felt this e xtraor dinary love beaming out of me to all
living things, in the very ne xt moment I felt myself slapped. The doctor, whom I alr eady loved, had hit me. I r emember
being absolutely and totally confused, hurt, and
traumatized. Why would he do that. I just could not believe
that this had happened. And then my mind went blank. I
descended into whatever I descended into, and that was
that. That memory, or whatever it is, speaks to the question of
whether we ar e bor n with the shadow. The answer is no, we
are bor n in perfect love. But whoever we ar e and whatever
we have been thr ough, something or someone—of ten with
the best of intentions—casts us into the r ealm of shadow,
and the task of the r est of our lives will be to e xit the
darkness and r eturn to light. From that one moment as a newbor n—that one traumatic
split fr om love that r eenacted within me the separation of all
humanity fr om the love at our cor e—I would be for ever
tempted to lose sight of love. Having been denied love,
even for a moment, I am now tempted to deny love to
others. And the purpose of my life, as it is the purpose of allour lives, is to r emember the love within me by
remembering its pr esence in everyone else. The woman at my friend’s house, admirable though she
was, tempted me at ﬁrst to judgment. But I ask ed for help,
and I was given it. As soon as I was willing to see the light in
her, my own light r eturned. And the shadow was gone. WHERE THERE’S NO L OVE, EXPECT FEAR
Any thought not ﬁlled with love is an invitation for the
shadow to enter. We are led to believe in the myth of
neutrality : that we don’t r eally need to love as long as we
don’t actively do har m. But every thought either heals or
harms. The inﬁnitely cr eative power of thought guarantees
that whatever we choose to think will r esult in an eﬀect. If I
do not choose to love—if I choose to withhold my love at all
—then in that moment ther e is cr eated a psychic void. And
fear will rush in to ﬁll the space. This applies to my thoughts about others and to my
thoughts about myself. Having focused on aspects of
someone else’s shadow, I cannot but enter my own: the
angry one, the contr olling one, the needy one, the dishonest
one, the manipulative one, and so forth. Once I enter the
darkness of blame and judgment, I’m blinded to my own
light and cannot ﬁnd my better self. Or having for gotten the essential truth of my own being—
not appr eciating myself by appr eciating the divine light that


 to my children’ s bedrooms. I must have walked by that
prayer at least 10,000 times in the decade that it hung there. Often I’d
pause, read a few lines, and contemplate the magic in the words: Wher e
there is hatred, let me sow love and, Wher e there is darkness, let me bring
light. These words seemed more like a technology than a prayer. I loved
thinking that hatred could grow into love, and darkness could be
illuminated—not by asking God to do it, but by being  love and light. It
seemed to promise that we humans had the ability to literally change
suffering and pain by transforming ourselves, and I enjoyed contemplating
that achievement. But, from this vantage point, I can see that I wasn’ t yet
ready to live Saint Francis’ s message, or even write it in the way that I’ve
succeeded with this book. Nevertheless, Francesco di Pietro di Bernardone (1181–1226) had come
into my life, and his influence  slowly began to engulf me as the years
passed. I was persuaded to go to Assisi in the 1990s, and while there I felt
in some unexplainable way I was home. I walked in the fields where
Francesco walke d; I meditated in the same little chapel where he prayed. I
stood at his tomb mesmerized by the overwhelming feeling in my body that
I was one with this man who had lived 800-plus years before my own birth. I began to read about Francesco  and was extremely moved by his burning
desire to fulfill his own dharma alongside his determination not to let
anything impede his dream. I too have felt that inner call to do the work
I’ve done all these years. I too have had periods of being off the path, and
always that inner voice bringing me back to writing and living each day—to
my Divine mission. About a decade ago I knew I was going to write a book titled There’s a
Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, but I was unclear about how to
organize this undertaking. In a deep meditation I heard a strong voice say,
Base it on the “Prayer of Saint Francis” that hangs on the wall in yourhome. It was a moment of such clarity and pure vision that I felt as if the
book was already written. All I had to do was let myself “be an instrument
of thy peace.”
I returned again to Assisi and had another miraculous experience. I
experienced a healing in my body that to this day remains a mystery to me
and my medical doctor friends as well. (I related the story of this healing
and my vision of Saint Francis in my movie, The Shift. ) Once again this
13th-century monk had transf ormed my life by appearing to me and
showing me that there are no limits to what can take place when one is
living from a God-realized perspective. I went on to write the book effortlessly, after taking copious notes on my
second visit to Assisi. Furthermo re, the subject matter of There’s a Spiritual
Solution to Every Problem  became  a public television special, and millions
of people had the teachings of Saint Francis brought into their homes
because of my calling to write  about these profoundly life-transforming
truths. Years ago I found myself drawn to the fictional re-creation of the life of
Saint Francis of Assisi, written by one of the greatest writers of our time,
Nikos Kazantzakis. And to this day I still read from this amazing novel
(Saint Francis ) regular ly and always find myself moved to tears and higher
consciousness by its contents. About a year ago I had another strong calling during a deep meditation to
take a group of people to three spiritual cities in Europe: Lourde s in France;
Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzego vina; and, of course, Assisi in Italy. We
called this journey “Experiencin g the Miraculous,” and 162 people from all
over the globe signed on to visit these holy places where genui ne miracles
have taken place in the 13th, 19th, and 20th centuries. I offered a two-hour
lecture in each of these remarkable places, and in our opening night
gathering in Assisi, I told everyone that we were truly fulfilling the vision
of Saint Francis. His objective was to bring Christ-conscious awareness to
the entire world, one parish, one city, one country at a time. On this trip we
had people from every continent, representing all age-groups from
teenagers to octogenarians. All professions, all religious persuasions, all
with the same ideas—to assist our world in being one that is populated by
people who desire to “make me an instrument of thy peace,” and thus create
such a world from our deepest wishes desiring to be fulfilled.On our second day in Assisi, on my third visit to this Divine city, all 162
people gathered in an ancient church built hundreds of years  ago when
Francesco lived there and began  the Franciscan order. As my two-hour talk
was winding down in this holy building, something happened to me that I
have never experienced in almost four decades of public lectures. I felt
something take over my body, and I was rendered speechless. I was doing a
reading from Kazantzakis’ s Saint Francis, and at the end I simply froze. My
body wouldn’ t move. I broke into almost furious sobbing, and the entire
audience stood up and stretched  out their hands to me in silenc e. Everyone
knew that a truly metaphysical happening was transpiring. (The entire trip
was filmed, including this and two other lectures. You can see it all for
yourself if you so desire by viewing the Experiencing the Miraculous  4-
DVD set that is produced by Hay House.) Many photographs were taken of me speaking beneath a portrait of Jesus
Christ in the church, and I have included one in the photo insert  so that you
might view the very large orb that made its appearance at that transfixing
lecture in the holy church in Assisi. You will learn more about these orbs
later in this book. What I can say with certainty is that I once again felt in my body the
power of Saint Francis. I experienced him, not only by his words and not
only around me, but in me— as me—while speaking to those 162 people
whom I feel were a catalytic group gathered for the purpose of fulfilling a
collective dharm a, originating in a thought in my imagination and now an
active force for good in our world. Looking back at my life, at the events
that brought Saint Francis into my life, it seems clear that I didn’ t recognize
the significance of them at the time. I simply did what I felt called to do. And I must say that Francesco didn’ t just come into my life with an
occasional message to prompt my own spiritual awakening, he actually took
it over and changed the course that my life was taking at the time—he lived
in me most of the time. I am going to leave Saint Francis for a moment and relate the presence of
another luminous being who arrived in my life about six years ago. Lao-tzuBack in 2005 I became reacquai nted with the ancient spiritual text the Tao
Te Ching, narrated some 2,500 years ago by the ancient Chinese master
Lao-tzu. Some have called this small book containing 81 short verses the
wisest book ever written. While I had a cursory awareness of the Tao, it was
by no means a significant teaching in my life. Y et I noticed that at the age of
65 I kept reading and receiving messages from the Tao Te Ching, which
translates loosely to the book of living the virtue of the gr eat way. I was familiar with some of the most quoted passages from the text and
had even used them in my previ ously published books, but now in 2005 for
some reason I seemed to be bombarded by them almost on a daily basis. In
a restaurant several lines from the Tao appeared on the menu; I heard more
quotations on a couple of TV shows; in a bookstore a translation was
misplaced on a shelf right next to one of my books; a close friend told me a
story of how he claimed to be a Taoist and the peace that it brought him;
and someone I didn’ t know sent me a card deck containing each of the 81
brief verses, along with a drawing of Lao-tzu sitting on an ox, and the
likeness seemed to speak to me like no drawing had before. Then one morning in my medit ation I felt a strong inner calling to read
the entire T ao Te Ching, and I did so that very day. That evening I called my
publisher and said I’d like to write a brief essay on each of the 81 verses on
how to apply the ancient wisdom of Lao-tzu to today’ s modern world, and
publish it as one volume titled Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life. From that moment on, I began to feel the same relationship with Lao-tzu as
I had been havin g with Saint Francis for the previous decade or so. I began
to hear this man speaking to me in my early-morning meditations. I mentioned this on my weekly radio show on HayHouseRadio.com, and
an artist named Magali told me on


	adopting	a	healthy	regimen	of	diet	and	lifestyle,
you	will	find	that	the	signs	of	wellness	and	vitality	begin	to	reappear. To	prevent	illness
and	make	permanent	health	a	practical	reality	in	your	life,	it	is	important	to	understand
what	actually	causes	gallstones	in	the	first	place. CHAPTER	3

The	Most	Common	Causes	of	Gallstones

Bile	consists	of	water,	mucus,	bile	pigment	(bilirubin),	bile	salts,	and	cholesterol,	as	well
as	enzymes	and	beneficial	bacteria. Liver	cells	secrete	this	yellow,	green,	or	brownish
fluid	into	tiny	canals,	known	as
bile	canaliculi. The	bile	canaliculi	join	up	to	form	larger
canals	that,	in	turn,	connect	with	the
right	and	left	hepatic	ducts. The	two	hepatic	ducts
combine	and	form	the
common	bile	duct
,	which	drains	bile	from	the	liver	and	supplies	the
gallbladder	with	the	right	amount	of	bile	for	the	process	of	digestion. Any	abnormal	change	in	the	composition	of	bile	affects	the	solubility	of	its	constituents
and,	hence,	causes	gallstones. For	simplicity’s	sake,	I	have	categorized	gallstones	into	two
basic	types:
cholesterol	stones
	and
pigment	stones
. Some	cholesterol	stones	are	composed
of	at	least	60	percent	cholesterol	and	have	a	yellowish	or	tan	color. Others	have	a	pea-
green	color	and	are	generally	soft,	like	putty	(these	can	consist	of	up	to	95	percent
cholesterol). Some	stones	may	contain	other	organic,	fatty	material. Pigment	stones
	are
brown	or	black,	owing	to	their	high	content	of	colored	pigment	(bilirubin). They	may	be
calcified,	and	they	are	harder	and	more	solid	than	cholesterol	stones. However,
cholesterol-based	stones	can	also	become	hard	and	calcified. Calcified	stones	grow	only	in
the	gallbladder. An	abnormal	alteration	of	the	components	of	bile	can	occur	in	a	number	of	ways. The
dissolving	action	of	bile	salts	and,	of	course,	copious	amounts	of	water,	normally	keep
cholesterol	in	liquid	form. An	increased	amount	of	cholesterol	in	the	bile	overwhelms	the
dissolving	capacity	of	the	bile	salts,	thereby	promoting	the	formation	of	cholesterol	stones. Similarly,	a	decrease	in	the	amount	of	bile	salts	being	produced	also	leads	to	cholesterol
stone	formation. In	addition,	due	to	insufficient	water	intake,	the	fluidity	of	bile	decreases,
and	much	of	the	cholesterol	is	not	dissolved	properly;	instead	it	reconstitutes	into	small
cholesterol	pebbles. In	time,	these	small	pebbles	grow	into	larger	ones. Pigment	stones	form	when	the	bile	pigment,	bilirubin,	a	waste	product	of	the
breakdown	of	red	blood	cells,	increases	in	the	bile. People	with	excessive	amounts	of
cholesterol	stones	in	the	liver	are	at	risk	for	developing	liver	cirrhosis,	sickle-cell	anemia,
or	other	blood	diseases. Any	of	these	complications	can	produce	high	concentrations	of
bilirubin	pigment	in	the	bile. These	abnormally	elevated	bilirubin	levels	lead	to	the
formation	of	pigment	stones	in	the	liver	and	gallbladder. When	the	composition	of	bile	in	the	liver	is	no	longer	balanced,	small	cholesterolcrystals	begin	to	combine	with	other	bile	components	to	form	tiny	clots. These	tiny	clots
can	obstruct	the	even	tinier	bile	canaliculi. This	slows	the	bile	flow	further,	causing	more
and	more	bile	to	attach	itself	to	these	tiny	clots. Eventually,	the	clots	become	large	enough
to	be	called	stones. Some	of	these	stones	may	pass	into	the	larger	bile	ducts	and	cluster
together	with	other	stones. They	may	also	grow	to	larger-size	stones	themselves. The
result	is	that	bile	flow	becomes	increasingly	obstructed	in	the	larger	bile	ducts	as	well. Once	several	of	the	larger	bile	ducts	are	congested,	hundreds	of	smaller	ducts	are	similarly
affected,	which	closes	the	vicious	cycle. Eventually,	the	hepatic	ducts	are	so	severely
clogged	with	intrahepatic	stones	(those	that	occur	inside	the	liver)	that	the	amount	of	bile
available	for	the	digestive	process	is	drastically	reduced. Since	the	liver	continues	to
produce	bile,	more	and	more	of	it	is	being	converted	into	stones,	while	some	of	it	ends	up
in	the	blood. Once	bile	has	leaked	into	the	blood,	it	may	lead	to	a	discoloration	of	the	skin
(yellow	or	gray)	and	cause	skin	blemishes,	such	as	liver	spots. Sluggish	bile	flow	in	the	liver	alters	the	composition	of	bile	still	further,	which,	in	turn,
affects	the	gallbladder. A	small	clot	of	bile	in	the	gallbladder	may	take	as	long	as	eight
years	to	grow	large	enough	to	be	noticeable	and	become	a	serious	health	threat. It	is
known	that	one	in	ten	Americans	has	gallstones	in	the	gallbladder. Of	these,	500,000	opt
for	gallbladder	surgery	each	year. Very	few	physicians	and	patients,	however,	are	aware	of
the	fact	that	almost	every	person	with	any	kind	of	persistent	health	problem	has	gallstones
in	the	liver. It	is	estimated	that	about	95	percent	of	adults	in	industrialized	nations	have
gallstones	in	the	biliary	system	of	their	liver. Gallstones	in	the	liver	can	cause	many	more	diseases	than	gallstones	in	the	gallbladder. To	prevent	illness	and	to	generate	a	genuine	and	lasting	breakthrough	in	the	understanding
and	treatment	of	disease,	we	need	to	have	a	clear	understanding	of	what	dehydrates	the
bile	fluid,	alters	its	natural	flora,	destroys	its	enzymes,	and	increases	its	cholesterol	and
bilirubin	content. The	following	four	categories	shed	light	on	the	most	common	factors
responsible	for	causing	gallstones. Dietary
	Overeating

Dietary	mistakes	probably	play	the	biggest	role	in	producing	imbalanced	bile	composition
and,	consequently,	gallstones. Among	all	dietary	blunders,
overeating
	affects	health	most
severely. By	regularly	eating	too	much	food	or	eating	food	more	frequently	than	the	body
needs	to	nourish	and	sustain	itself,	the	digestive	juices	(including	bile)	become
increasingly	depleted. This	leaves	large	proportions	of	the	ingested	foods	improperly
digested. Undigested	food	putrefies	and	ferments,	becoming	a	constant	source	of	harmful
microbial	activity. This	rather	unnatural	means	of	breaking	down	food	alters	the	pH	(acid-
alkaline	balance)	of	the	intestinal	environment,	turning	it	into	a	favorable	environment	for
yeast	growth	and	parasites. (
Note:
	Cleansing	of	the	liver	and	colon,	and	eating	a	balanced
diet	rich	in	fresh,	alkaline-forming	foods,	are	among	the	most	effective	ways	to	prevent
and	treat	parasitic	infestation;	the	killing	of	parasites	does	not	address	its	cause	and	may
only	have	limited


 story about the connection
between love and physical healing:
An Ohio University study of heart disease in the
1970s was conducted by feeding quite to xic,
high-cholester ol diets to rabbits in or der to blocktheir arteries, duplicating the eﬀect that such a
diet has on human arteries. Consistent r esults
began to appear in all the rabbit gr oups e xcept
for one, which strangely displayed 60 per cent
fewer symptoms. Nothing in the rabbits’
physiology could account for their high tolerance
to the diet, until it was discover ed by accident
that the student who was in char ge of feeding
these particular rabbits lik ed to fondle and pet
them. He would hold each rabbit lovingly for a
few minutes befor e feeding it; astonishingly, this
alone seemed to enable the animals to
overcome the to xic diet. R epeat e xperiments, in
which one gr oup of rabbits was tr eated neutrally
while the others wer e loved, came up with
similar r esults. Once again, the mechanism that
causes such immunity is quite unknown—it is
baﬄing to think that evolution has built into the
rabbit mind an immune r esponse that needs to
be trigger ed by human cuddling. Studies have shown that cancer patients who attend
support gr oups live, on the average, twice as long af ter
diagnosis as those who don’t. What is this “psycho -
immunological factor ” which, by now, science knows e xists,
but doesn’t know how to identif y? That factor is love, or
God. God is of no practical value if we per ceive Him mer ely as
a free-ﬂoating concept, divor ced fr om the power of physical
expression. It is only when He is e xpressed on the earth, His
love channeled thr ough human beings as in the case of the
student cuddling the rabbits, or support gr oups wher e the
space is cr eated for incr eased compassion and
understanding, that He is allowed to penetrate the veil of
human darkness.Over the last several years I have counseled many
people diagnosed with cancer, AIDS and other life-
challenging illnesses. In 1987, I ask ed my friend L ouise Hay
if she would help me start a nonpr oﬁt or ganization
dedicated to helping people in physical crisis, to be called
The L os Angeles Center for Living. In 1989, The Manhattan
Center for Living opened in New Y ork City. The Centers’
mission statement is that we pr ovide fr ee nonmedical
support services to people dealing with life- challenging
illness and grief. On both coasts, we have seen the miracles
that occur when people invok e the power of love in the
midst of disease and grief. “Do not look to the god of sickness for healing but only to
the God of love,” says the Course, “ for healing is the
acknowledgement of Him.” In the traditional W ester n
medical model, a healer’s job is to attack disease. But if the
consciousness of attack is the ultimate pr oblem, how could
it be the ultimate answer? A miracle work er’s job is not to
attack illness, but rather to stimulate the natural for ces of
healing. W e turn our eyes away fr om sickness to the love
that lies beyond it. No sickness can diminish our capacity to
love. Does that mean that it is a mistak e to tak e medicine? Absolutely not. A Course in Miracles  reminds us that the
Holy Spirit enters into our lives at our pr esent level of
consciousness. Many of us believe that the doctor in the
white coat can heal us with that pill he’s giving us. Therefore, says the Course, we should tak e the pill. But the
healing doesn’t come fr om the pill. It comes fr om our belief. Cancer studies have shown that rates of r ecovery in
patients choosing traditional medical tr eatment, versus
those taking a mor e holistic r oute, ar e roughly equal. This
makes perfect sense, because in neither case is therecovery a r esult of the for m of cur e. It is the patient’s
mental and emotional interaction with his tr eatment that
activates its healing power. I have led support gr oups for people dealing with life-
challenging illness, wher e during the entir e session, disease
was mentioned only in passing. W e attend gr oups not to
grow closer to our disease, but rather to gr ow closer to the
power for healing which lies within us. Many of the issues
that confr ont us when we ar e ill ar e the same issues that
confr onted us in one way or another when we wer e still
healthy, but we didn’t deal with them until now. Life goes on
when we ar e ill. It is mer ely intensiﬁed. W e tend to handle
illness basically the way we handle everything else in life. We must avoid the temptation to see illness as a block to
our capacity to ﬁnd God, and instead use it as a springboar d
from which we soar into His ar ms.
3. HEAL THY THINKING
“Healing, then, is a way of appr oaching
knowledge by thinking in accor dance with the
laws of God.”
There is a healing for ce within each of us, a kind of divine
physician seated within our minds and in communication
with every cell of our being. This for ce is the intelligence
that drives the immune system. Its pr esence is obvious to
us whenever we cut a ﬁnger or br eak a leg. What is this “divine intelligence” and how is it activated? ‘The A tonement r eleases the mind to its full cr eative power.’
“Jesus saves” means “love heals the mind.” How did Jesus
heal the leper? By for giving him. He stood in the midst of
illusion and yet saw only the truth as God cr eated it. Hehealed thr ough cor rected per ception. When he stood in fr ont
of a leper, he didn’t see lepr osy. He e xtended his per ception
beyond what the physical senses r evealed, to r eality as
seen thr ough the vision of the Holy Spirit. W ithin the leper is
the Son of God, perfect, unalterable, changeless. The spirit
is eter nally healthy. The spirit cannot get sick and the spirit
cannot die. Jesus sees only as God sees. He accepted the A tonement
for himself. Jesus did not believe  in lepr osy. Since all minds
are connected, in his pr esence the leper no longer believed
in it either. And so the leper was healed. In A Course in Miracles, Jesus, who is the personal symbol
of the Holy Spirit, says, “Y our mind and mine can unite in
shining your ego away.” Asking the Holy Spirit to heal us
when we ar e sick means asking him to heal the thoughts
within us which give rise to sickness. Several years ago, when I had just begun lecturing on A
Course in Miracles, I had a series of thr ee car accidents in
which I was r ear-ended on the fr eeway. In every case, I had
surrender ed the e xperience immediately, r emembering that
I was not subject to the eﬀect of worldly danger, and was
not har med or hurt in any way. A week or so af ter the last accident, I developed a cold
and a serious sor e throat. On a F riday af ternoon, with a
lectur e to give about the Course the ne xt mor ning, I was
feeling ter rible. I had a date for drinks af ter work with my
girlfriend Sarah. Since I felt so bad I wanted to cancel the
date and go home to bed, but when I called Sarah’s oﬃce I
was told that she had alr eady lef t for the day. I had no
choice but to go to the café, and on my way driving ther e, I
turned my attention to healing my thr oat. I wished
desperately for access to a doctor, because I knew that anantibiotic called Erythr omycin had always healed this thr oat
problem for me in the past. Since I was new in L os Angeles, I
didn’t know any doctors yet. I tur ned to the Course. How did
this happen, I ask ed myself. Wher e did my thinking deviate
from truth? Wher e was my wr ong-minded per ception? I
received the answer as soon as I ask ed, and it struck me lik e
a bolt of lightning. Although I had applied principle in
relation to the accident itself, I had “given into temptation ”
right af terwar ds. In what way? A fter thr ee accidents,
everyone I knew had come up to ask me if I was all right. They put their hands on me, rubbed my neck and back
gently, inquir ed as to whether I’d seen a doctor, and oozed
gentleness all over me. The attention felt good. Being sick
made people love me


ome strengthened and more deeply entrenched. Y ou will become
identified with one of the polari ties, you will create an “enemy,” and so
be drawn into unconscious ness yourself. Raise aware ness by
disseminating information, or at the most, practice passive resistance. But ma ke sure that you carry no resistance within, no hatred, no
negativity. “Lov e your enemies,” said Jesus, which, of course, means
“have no enemies.”Once you get in volved in working on the level of ef fect, it is all too easy
to lo se yourself in it. Stay alert and very, very present. The cau sal level
needs to  remain your primary fo cus, the teaching of enlightenment your
main purpose, and peace your most precious gift to the world.CHAPTER TEN
T H E  M E A N I N G  O F
 S U R R E N D E R
ACCEPT ANCE OF THE NOW
Y ou mentioned “surr ender” a few times. I don’ t like that idea. It sounds
somewhat fatali stic. If we alway s accept the way things ar e, we ar e not
going to  make any effort to imp r ove them. It seems to me what pr ogr ess
is al l about, bot h in our person al lives and collectively, is not to accept
the limitations of the pr esent bu t to strive to go beyond them and cr eate
something better. If we hadn’ t done this, we would still be living in caves. How do you r ec oncile surr ender  with changing things and getting things
done? T o some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying
defeat, g iving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, b ecoming
lethar gic, and so on. T rue surrender, however, is something entirely
dif ferent. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation
you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. Nor does it mean  to cease
making plans or initiating positive action. Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to  rather than
opposing  the flow  of life. The only place  where you can  experie nce the
flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present  moment
unconditionally and without reservation. It is to relinquish inner
resistance to what is. Inn er r esistance is to say “no”  to what is, through
mental judgment and emotional negativity. It becomes pa rticularly
pronounced whe n things “go wrong,” which means that there is a gapbetween the demands or rigid expectations of your mind and  what is. That is the pain gap. If you hav e lived long enough, you will know that
things “go wrong” quite often. It is precisely at those times that surrender
needs to  be practiced if you wan t to eliminate pain and sorrow from your
life. Acceptance of what is  immed iately frees you from mind
identification and thus reconnects you with Being. Resistance is  the
mind. Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It does not mean that on the
outer level you cannot take acti on and change the situation. In fact, it is
not t he o verall s ituation that you need to accept when you surre nder, but
just the tiny segment called the Now. For example, if you were stuck  in the mud somewhere, you wouldn’ t
say: “Ok ay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud.” Resig nation is
not s urrender. Y ou don’ t need to  accept an undesirable or unpleasant life
situation. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is
nothing wrong with being stuck  in the mud. No. Y ou recognize fully that
you want to get out of it. Y ou then narrow your attention down to the
present m oment without mentall y labeling it in any way. This means that
there is no judgment of the No w. Therefore, there is no resis tance, no
emotional negativity. Y ou accep t the “isness” of this moment. Then you
take action and do all that you can to get out of the mud. Such action I
call posi tive action. It is far more ef fective than negative action, which
arises ou t of anger, despair, or f rustration. Until you achieve the desired
result, y ou continue to practice surrender by refraining from labeling the
Now. Let me give you a visual analog y to illustrate the point I am mak ing. Y ou
are walk ing alo ng a path at night, surrounded by a thick fog. But you
have a powerful  flashlight that c uts through the fog and creates a narrow,
clear space in front of you. The fog is your life situation, which  includes
past and future; the flashlight is your conscious presence; the cl ear space
is the Now. Non-surrender h ardens your psychological form, the shell of the ego, and
so creat es a strong sense of separateness. The world around you and
people in particular come to be perceived as threatening. The
unconscious compulsion to destroy others through judgment arises, as
does the need to compete and  dominate. Even nature becomes yourenemy a nd you r perceptions and interpretations are governed  by fear. The men tal dise ase that we cal l paranoia is only a slightly more acute
form of this normal but dysfunctional state of consciousness. Not only  your psychological form but also your physical form  — your
body — becomes hard and rigid through resistance. T ension arises in
dif ferent parts of the body, and the body as a whole contracts. The free
flow of life ener gy through the body, which is essential for it s healthy
functioning, is greatly restricted. Bodywork and certain forms of
physical therapy  can be helpfu l in restoring this flow, but unless you
practice surrender in your everyday life, those things can only give
temporary symptom relief since the cause — the resistance pattern —
has not been dissolved. There is  something within you that remains unaf fected by the transient
circumstances that make up your life situation, and only through
surrender do you have access t o it. It is your life, your very Being —
which exists eternally in the timeless realm of the present. Finding this
life is “the one thing that is needed” that Jesus talked about. If yo u fi nd your life situation unsatisfactory or even intolerable, it is only
by surre ndering first that you can break the unconscious r esistance
pattern that perpetuates that situation. Surrender is perfectly compatible with taking action, initiating change, or
achieving goals. But in the surrendered state a totally dif ferent ener gy, a
dif ferent quality, flows into your doing. Surrender reconnects you with
the sour ce-ener gy of Being, and if your doing is infused with Being, it
becomes a joyful celebration of  life ener gy that takes you more deeply
into the Now. Through nonresis tance, the quality of your consc iousness
and, therefore, the quality of whatever you are doing or cr eating is
enhanced immea surably. The results will then look after themselves and
reflect that quality. W e could call this surr ender ed action. It is not work
as we have known it for thousa nds of years. As more humans  awaken,
the word work  i s going  to disappear from our vocabulary, and perhaps a
new word will be created to replace it.It is  the quality  of your conscio usness at this moment that is the main
determinant of what kind of future you will experience, so to sur render is
the m ost important thing you ca n do to br ing about p ositive change. Any
action you take is secondary. No  truly positive action can arise out of an
unsurrendered state of consciousness. I c an see that if I am in a situa tion that is unpleasant or unsatisfactory
and I completely  accept the moment as it is, ther e will be no suf fering or
unhappiness. I will have risen a bove it. But I still can’ t quite see wher e
the ener gy or motivation for taking action and bringing about change
would come fr om if ther e isn’ t a certain amount of dissatisfaction. In th e st ate of surrender, you see very clearly what needs to be done, and
you take  action,  doing one thing  at a time and focusing on one thing at a
time. Learn from nature: See how  everything gets accomplished  and how
the mira cle of life unfolds without dissatisfaction or unhappiness. That’ s
why Jesus said: “Look at the lil ies, how they grow; they neithe r toil nor
spin.”
If your overall situation is unsatisfactory or unpleasant, separate out this
instant  and surrender to  what is. Th at’ s the flash light cutting through the
fog. Y our state o f consciousness then ceases to be controlled by  external
conditions. Y ou are no longer coming from reaction and resistance. Then look at the specifics of the situation. Ask yourself, “Is there
anything I can do to change the situation, improve it, or remove myself
from it?” If so, you take app ropriate action. Focus not on the one


 a loose-fitting cover in refrigerator. Wholegrain R ye Br ead
6 cups lukewarm  water, sourdough starter, and 3 lbs rye flour or a 70/30
ratio of rye flour to whole wheat flour. Mix sourdough in water, add flour. Leave covered and warm (180°F) for 12-24 hours. Replace 1 cup sourdough to refrigerator as starter for next time. Add: 2 cups lukewarm water, 2 1bs rinsed whole rye grain, and 2 lbs
rolled rye (use enough rye flour, maybe 2 lbs, to hold dough together). Roll and cut dough to fit loaf pans. Smooth the surface with a wet hand and leave dough in a warm  place to
rise for 2-5 hours. The taste gets stronger the longer it is left to rise, and it will rise only a
little. Cut a furrow down the middle, about ¼" to ½" deep. Bake for 1½ hours at 385°F
Take out of pans immediately and wrap in towels and turn upside down. Do not cut for about 12 hours. Bread can be frozen when lukewarm.Bread Snack
1 slice of bread, spread with cottage cheese, topped with tomatoes, and
radishes or sprouts or 1 slice of bread topped with honey. Bread Dr essing
1 part chopped onions, 1 part chopped celery, 2-3 parts cubed grain
bread, ½ part chopped parsley, ½ to 1 cup water, plus sage, garlic, and
thyme. Place in an uncovered casserole and bake in low oven for 2 hours. Bread Crumbs
Toast leftover bread in the oven. Run it through the food grinder. Store in covered container in the refrigerator. Sour R ye Br ead (Black Br ead Russian Style)
Note: Sour rye is a dif ferent sourdough culture. You will need to make the sour rye sourdough starter from scratch and
keep it separate from your other starter. 8 cups freshly ground whole rye flour, 3 cups warm water, and ½ cup
sourdough culture. Mix 7 cups of the rye flour with water and sourdough culture. Cover and let stand in a warm place 12 to 18 hours. Remove and save ½ cup of dough as a culture for next baking, and keep
the saved culture in a tightly closed jar in refrigerator. Add remaining cup of rye flour and mix well. Divide dough in half. Form oblong loaf smaller than size of pan in lightly floured hands (using
rye flour). Place gently into stainless steel baking pans. Do not press; allow space around sides of loaf.Try dusting stainless steel pan with flour or rye meal, no oil. Let rise for approximately ½ hour. Bake at 350°F for 1 hour or more. Makes two 2-lb loaves. Store tightly wrapped in refrigerator. Sourdough Cultur e
In a wide-mou thed glass jar at least 1 quart in size, mix well the
following ingred ients: 1 cup lukewarm distilled water, 2 tsp baking yeast, 1
tsp raw sugar, and 1 cup rye flour. Stir well once daily with a wooden spoon (never leave a metal spoon in
starter). Allow to sit for 3 to 5 days until sour odor is detected. May cover loosely after 2nd day. Remove ½ cup for bread recipe above. Store covered in refrigerator adding half cup from dough after first rising. Bring to room temperature 1 hour before starting each new recipe. Sourdough Potato R ye Br eadYN
1 cup sourdough starter, 2 cups warm mashed potatoes, 1
 cups potato
cooking water, 2 cups whole wheat or rye Flour,i ¼ cup molasses
(unsulfured), and
  tsp caraway or fennel seed. Mix ingredients in lar ge nonmetal bowl. Cover and let stand in warm place for several hours (or overnight for a
very sour loaf). Add the following: 1½ to 3 cups rye flour as needed to make a workable
dough. Turn onto floured board and knead for 5-10 minutes. Let dough rest for 5 minutes, then form into round or baton-shaped
loaves. Place on nonstick bake sheet, or regular bake sheet (ungreased) that has
been well coated with raw oat flakes to prevent sticking. Let bread rise until almost double (when bread does not spring back
when lightly touched).Bake at 350°F for 50 minutes to 1 hour. For a very chewy crust, place a pan of water in bottom of oven to create
steam, or baste bread several times during baking with water. For soft crust, do not steam or baste. Immediately wrap loaves in cotton towels after removing from oven. Let bread cool before cutting. Sourdough Squash R ye Br ead
1 cup sourdough  starter, 2 cups pureed cooked squash (such as butternut
or kabocha), 1
 cups water, 2cups rye flour, ¼ cup honey, and ¼ cup
potato flour. Mix dry ingredients in ceramic or plastic bowl. Cover and let stand in warm place to rise (85 to 95 percent is ideal.) Add 2 cups rye flour, then 1½ to 3 cups more rye flour until achieving
workable dough. Turn onto floured board and knead for 5-10 minutes. Let dough rest for 5 minutes, then shape into loaves or rolls. Sprinkle bottom of baking pans with raw oats, then let rise for 2 hours or
until doubled in size. Bake at 350°F for an hour. Let loaves cool before slicing. Carr ot Raisin Quick Br eadYN
1½ cups triticale or rye flour, 1½ cups brown rice or oat flour, 1 cup
whole wheat or rye flour, 5 cups carrots grated, 2½ cups orange pulp,
 –½
cup honey, 2 cups raisins, ½ tsp each of allspice and coriander, plus approx. 2 large navel oranges, peeled and ground. Sift dry ingredients together. Stir in raisins. Mix the remaining ingredients, then gradually stir into dry mix. Dough should be rather firm. Divide in half and fill two nonstick bake pans. Bake at 325°F for 50 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before removing from pan.Essene Br eadYN
This naturally sweet cakey bread is made with only sprouted grain. The original Essene Bread recipe comes from The Essene Gospel of
Peace, a 2,000-year -old Aramaic text, which reveals the process of
sprouting wheat as follows: “Moisten your wheat, that the angel of water
may enter it. Then set it in the air, that the angel of air may also embrace it. And leave it from morning to evening beneath the sun, that the angel of
sunshine may descend upon it.” This modern version differs from the
original only in the use of oven heat instead of the sun’ s.
For 1 loaf use: 1 quart of 2-day-old wheat, rye, or triticale sprouts. Refrigerate sprouts for 1 day, uncovered, to dry slightly. Do not rinse before grinding or you will wind up with more of a pudding
than bread. Grind in hand or electric grind er or in the Norwalk® using the #2 grid
(second to the lar gest). Feed sprouts gradually or they will become like cement in your grinding
mechanism. Shape into 1½"-to-2" high loaf. Place on nonstic k or regular baking sheet well coated with oat flakes to
prevent sticking. Bake at 250-300°F for 1½ to 2½ hours (loaf should be nicely browned). Cool thoroughly before slicing (chilled is best). Use serrated knife with a
gently sawing motion. It also helps to dip knife in cold water before slicing
bread. VARIA TIONS IN  BREAD
Fruit Br ead
Add:
  or
  cup raisins or other chopped dried fruit, ½ tsp coriander,
and mace or allspice. Onion or Garlic Herb Br eadAdd: 2 or 3 tbsp finely minced onion, or 2-4 cloves pressed garlic, ½ to 1
tsp dill, thyme, and caraway or fennel. Wafers or Crackers
Form into ¼" patties or roll out on floured board and cut into squares. Bake
wafers or crackers on a nonstick or oat-coated baking sheet at a temperature
of 250-300° F for 45 minutes to 1 hour. OceanofPDF.comA P P E N D I X E S
OceanofPDF.comGERSON THERAPY FINANCIAL AND CONT ACT INFORMA TION
You may have wondered: How much does the Gerson Therapy cost, and
how long does the treatment last? At the present time, the cost at a Gerson cancer facility is U.S.$ 4,900 per
patient per week. This price includes room and board for a companion to
assist in learning the treatment to help the patient on his return home to self-
administer the nutritional/detoxifying program. Bringing a caregiver is
necessary. A companion shares the patient’ s room (t


 as one” means the day will come when they
will no longer exist as two separate states. Our thoughts will be purified of
fear, so our planet will be purif ied of fear as well. That is our destiny; we
will get there through wisdom or we will get there through pain. How long
it will take, and how much suffering we will have to go through first, is
entirely up to us. But our healin g is foreordained, because God’ s Will has
never not been done.<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Guilt is the corne rstone of the ego’s thought system, just as
innocence is the cornerstone of the Holy Spirit’ s. In projecting guilt onto someon e else, we are attacking ourselv es. Like
an autoimmune disease, the ego insanely attacks that which we are meant to
bless. Given that the power of the mind is literally infinite, it becomes an
instrument of mass destruction more powerful than any we can imagine. I remember having dinner with my daughter when she was about ten
years old. I don’t know how the topic came up, but somehow there was a
mention of nuclear bombs. I remember her putting her little head in her
hands and saying with great intensity, “The fact that they exist is insane. ”
She said it with a moral clarity  that only a child can express—simple
and unequivocal. There were not yet mitigating factors, complicated
justifications, or any excuses whatsoever that could veil the absolute truth
in her mind. And she was right. The issue is not that nuclear bombs are good or bad. The issue is that
they are insane. Given  that enough of them  could destroy human
civilization as we know it, or possibly even the species for at least a fewhundred thousand years, the very fact that they exist is an example of how
humanity crucifi es itself. When Gandhi said that the problem of the world is
that humanity is not in its right mind, he was right. Yet we can choo se again. We can be as vigilant against the ego as for it. The resurrection  having already been accomplished, the issue is whether or
not we choose to claim it. Resurrection is a choice. We live in a world in which crucifixion is given more respect than love. We have more faith in the powe r of cancer to kill us than we have in God to
heal us. How much more attention and resources are given to those who
know how to wage war and manufacture the means to do it, than to those
who know how to wage peace and build thriving communities. We literally
give more respe ct to fear than to love. Our collective ego uses all manner of
pseudosophistication to obscure its real intentions. The way of resurrection
is available; it’ s simply too often unchosen. Jesus having already broken the spell of darkness, the resurrection is
now an established fact in the ethers of human consciousness. It’s like a
superpower we just leave lying  on the sidewalk. Saying we believe in the
resurrection yet refusing to live its message, we simply mock Jesus as he
was mocked before. And what is our resistance. Why, with so many professing our desire to
love and to be loved, do we so often not. Surely it is not because love is
unreasonable. According to A Cours e in Miracles, love restores reason and
not the other way around. No, our resistance is about some thing deeper than that. Our resistance is
the fact that the one thing we find scarier than death is the prospect of
having to change. Some people would rather die than change their mind*
(MT-51). If Jesus is real, if he is alive and his power is available to us, then
basically everyth ing we’ve ever been taught about the world is untrue. And
that’s true—but also terrifying to the ego. The ego is terrified of love, and our identification with ego has made us
terrified of love too. The belief that we are separate is so ingrai ned into our
thought system that we fear annihilation without it. That’ s because to the
ego, love is annihilation. Those who profess love as the cure to the world’ s ailments are so often
deemed “not in touch with reality. ” The reality we don’t choose  to be in
touch with is a reality that will kill us all. Even more significantly than that,the ego’s reality isn’t even ultimate reality. Humanity is awakeni ng from the
real to the Real. From climate change that could  make the planet uninhabitable for most
people, to prospects of nuclear disaster, our current way of living on this
planet is a slow-moving crucifixion of the human race. But the story isn’ t over.<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>
Q: What is the core of the ego's thought system?,
A: Guilt
Q: What is the ultimate goal of the resurrection?,
A: To transform and resurrect ourselves, and in doing so, to transform the world
Q: According to the text, what is the power of the mind?,
A: Infinite
Q: What is the significance of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus?,
A: To demonstrate the power of love and forgiveness, and to show that it is possible to overcome fear and darkness
Q: What is the ultimate goal of the Course in Miracles?,
A: To awaken humanity to the reality of their oneness and guide them towards a path of redemption and transformation.<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>“If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, the
loneliness is gone”* (T -144). I have borne witness to much agony in my life. I have sat at many
deathbeds. I have held parents in my arms who just saw their child take
their last breath. I have seen, and I have experienced, the torture of
heartbreak. Yet in the lives of others, as in my own life as well, I have seen
deep darkness turn into light. I have seen hope again in the eyes of thosewho form erly had none. I have seen how the universe operates. I have seen
the glory of God. We came from love and shall return to love. There is no question this
will happen after we die, but the bigger point is, we can go there now. We
don’t have to wait until death to experience the deathless. Our eyes can be
reopened, right here, right now. Where the mystic Jesus is made welcome, there he is. OceanofPDF.comAcknowledgments
W RITING IS VER Y private, but it can take a lot of people to make a writer ’s
work possible. I am deeply grateful to the people who have done this for
me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart... To Andr ea Cagan, who once again became my muse when the words
were in me but I couldn’ t find them. To Robert Perry, who generousl y lent me his brilliance and insight into
A Course in Miracles. To Emil y Bennington, whose gracious work with Robert at the Circle of
Atonement lent insight and direction. To Laure n Selsky, Cathy Parr, Cindy Alvarado, Gina Vucci, Debo Grim,
and Tammy Brenizer, for handli ng with excellence and grace the world that
swirled around me as I wrote. To Ellis Levine, for continuing to guide my publishing career. To Tamm y Vogsland, for making sure my world didn’ t fall apart as I
wrote. To Gabriella Page-Fort, who showed great care and generosity in
bringing the book to completion. To assistant editor Ryan Amato, production editor Lisa Zuniga,
copyeditor Cathy Cambron, interior designer Leah Carlson-Stan isic, interior
design manager  Yvonne Chan, and cover designer Stephen Brayda. To
marketer Julia Kent, publicists Courtney Nobile  and Alison Cerri, deputy
publisher Laina Adler, and publisher Judith Curr. Thanks to all of you for
doing such a wonderful job.To my daughter, India, my greatest blessing. And to Mickey Maudlin for the years of wise direction, for giving me
the chance to write this book, and believing that I could. OceanofPDF.comAbout the Author
MARIANNE WILLIAMSON  is an internation ally acclaimed lecturer and
New York Times bestselling author with fourteen  published books, including
A Return to Love. She has been a popular guest on a number of television
programs, including Oprah, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, and
Charlie Rose. Williamson is the founder of Project Angel Food, a meals-on-
wheels program that serves homebound people with AIDS in the Los
Angeles area. She is a native of Houston, Texas. Discover great authors, exclusive of fers, and more at hc.com. OceanofPDF.comPraise for Marianne Williamson’ s A
Return to Love
“Marianne Williamson’ s book is a classic. She reveals, with
elegant simplicity, that love is not a mere sentiment of emotion, but the
ultimate truth at the heart of creation.”
—Deepak Chopra, MD
“With this gutsy book Marianne Williamson has single-hande dly
ushered in a powerful spiritual renewal. I wholeheartedly recommend
your reading it.”
—John Bradshaw, author of Homecoming: Reclaiming and
Championing Y our Inner Child  and Creating Love: The Next


 kindness proffered, the love and good will
you send forth, will all come back to you multiplied in many ways. 6. You are the only thinker in your world. You are responsi-ble for
the way you think about the other. Remember, the other pers on is not
 175  responsible for the way you think about him. Your thoughts are
reproduced. What are you thinking now about the other fellow? 7. Become emotionally mature and permit other people to differ
from you. They have a perfect right to disagree with you, and you
have the same freedom to disagree with them. You can disagree
without being disagreeable. 8. Animals pick up your fear vibrations and snap at you. If you l ove
animals, they will never attack you. Many un-disciplined human
beings are just as sensitive as dogs, cats, and other animals. 9. Your inner speech, representing your silent thoughts and feelings,
is experienced in the reactions of others toward you. 10. Wish for the other what you wish for yourself. This is the ke y to
harmonious human relations. 11. Change your concept and estimate of your employer. Feel and
know he is practicing the Golden Rule and the Law of Love, and h e
will respond accordingly. 12. The other person cannot annoy you or irritate you except you
permit him.<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        An old friend appeared in the dream and said,
“Read  these headlines—do not go. ” The headlines of the newspaper,
which appeared in the dream, related to war and the attack on Pe arl
Harbor. Occasionally, the writer dreams literally. The aforemen-ti oned
dream was undoubtedly a dramatization of the subcon-scious mind
which projected a person whom I trusted and respected. To some a
warning may come in the form of a mother who appears in a dream. 141  She tells the person not to go here or there, and the reason for the
warning. Your subconscious mind is all-wise. It knows all thi ngs. Oftentimes it will speak to you only in a voice that your con scious
mind will immediately accept as true. Sometimes your subcons cious
will warn you in a voice which sounds like that of your mother o r
some loved one which may cause you to stop on the street, and you
find, if you had gone another foot, a falling object from a window
might have struck you on the head. My subconscious mind is one with the universal subcon-scious, and
it knew the Japanese were planning a war, and it also kne w when the
war would start. Dr. Rhine, director of the Department of Psychology at Duke
University, has gathered together a vast amount of evi-dence show ing
that a great number of people all over the world see events be fore they
happen, and in many instances are, therefore, able to avoid the tra gic
event which was foreseen vividly in a dream. The dream which I had showed clearly the headlines in The New
York Times about three years prior to the tragedy of Pearl Harbor. In
consequence of this dream, I immediately cancelled the trip as  I felt a
subconscious compulsion to do so. Three years later the Second
World War proved the truth of the inner voice of intuition. • Your future is in your subconscious mind
Remember that the future, the result of your habitual think -ing, is
already in your mind except when you change it through prayer. The
future of a country, likewise, is in the collective subconsc ious of the
people of that nation. There is nothing strange in the dream I had
wherein I saw the headlines of the New York newspapers long bef ore
the war began. The war had already taken place in mind, and all the
plans of attack were already engraved on that great recordi ng
instrument, the subconscious mind or collective unconscious of the
universal mind. Tomorrow’s events are in your subconscious mind, so
are next week’s and next month’s, and they may be seen by a highly
psychic or clairvoyant person. 142  No disaster or tragedy can happen to you if you decide to pray. Nothing is predetermined or foreordained. Your mental attitude, i. e.,
the way you think, feel, and believe determines your destiny. You can,
through scientific prayer, which is ex-plained in a previous ch apter,
mold, fashion, and create your own future. Whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap. • A cat nap nets him $15,000
One of my students mailed me a newspaper clipping three or four
years ago about a man called Ray Hammerstrom, a roller at t he steel
works in Pittsburgh operated by Jones and Laughlin Steel
Corporation. He received $15,000 for his dream. According to the article, the engineers could not fix a faulty s witch
in a newly installed bar mill which controlled the deliver y of straight
bars to the cooling beds. The engineers worked on the switch abou t
eleven or twelve times to no avail. Hammerstrom thought a lot about the problem and tried to figure
out a new design, which might work. Nothing worked. One afternoon
he lay down for a nap, and prior to sleep he began to think about t he
answer to the switch problem. He had a dream in which a pe rfect
design for the switch was portrayed. When he awoke, he sketched his
new design according to the outline of his dream. This visionary catnap won Hammerstrom a check for $15,000; the
largest award the firm ever gave an employee for a new idea. • How a famous professor solved his problem in sleep
Dr. H. V. Helprecht, Professor of Assyrian at the Uni-versit y of
Pennsylvania, wrote as follows: “One Saturday eve-ning. I had be en
wearying myself, in the vain attempt to decipher two small fragments
of agate which were supposed to belong to the finger rings of some
Babylonians. “About midnight, weary and exhausted, I went to bed and dreamed
the following remarkable dream: A tall, thin priest of Nipp ur, about
 143  forty years of age, led me to the treasure chamber of the te mple. a
small, low-ceilinged room without windows, while scraps of agate and
lapis-lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here he addressed me as
follows: ‘The two fragments which you have published separat ely on
pages 22 and 26 belong together, are not finger rings. The first two
rings served as earrings for the statue of the god; the two fragments
(you have). are the portions of them. If you will put them toget her
you will have confirmation of my words. ’. I awoke at once. I
examined the fragments. and to my astonishment found the dream
verified. The problem was then at last solved. ”
This demonstrates clearly the creative manifestation of his
subconscious mind, which knew the answer to all his problems. • How the subconscious worked for a famous writer while he slept
Robert Louis Stevenson in one of his books, Across the Plains,
devotes a whole chapter to dreams. He was a vivid dreamer and had
the persistent habit of giving specific instruc-tions to his  subconscious
every night prior to sleep. He would request his subconscious to
evolve stories for him while he slept. For example, if Ste venson’s
funds were at low ebb, his command to his subconscious would be
something like this: “Give me a good thrilling novel which wi ll be
marketable and profitable. ” His subconscious responded
magnificently. Stevenson says, “These little brownies [the intelligences and powers
of his subconscious] can tell me a story piece by piece, like a serial,
and keep me, its supposed creator, all the while in total ig norance of
where they aim. ”
And he added: “That part of my work which is done when I am up
and about [while he is consciously aware and awake] is by no means
necessarily mine, since all goes to show that the brownies have a hand
in it even then. ”
• Sleep in peace and wake in joy
 144  To those who suffer from insomnia, you will find the following
prayer very effective. Repeat it slowly, quietly, and loving ly prior to
sleep: “My toes are relaxed, my ankles are relaxed, my a bdominal
muscles are relaxed, my heart and lungs are relaxed, my hands  and
arms are relaxed, my neck is re-laxed, my brain is relaxed, my  face is
relaxed, my eyes are relaxed, my whole mind and body are relaxed. I
fully and freely forgive everyone, and I sincerely wish for them
harmony,  health, peace, and all the blessings of me. I am at peace; I
am poised, serene, and calm. I rest in security and in peace. A great
stillness steals over me, and a great calm quiets my whole be ing as I
realize the Divine Presence within me. I know that the re alization of
life and love heals me. I wrap myself in the mantle of love  and fall
asleep filled with good will for all. Throughout the night peace
remains


 canning. Factory canned foods cont ain good quantities of vitamin C if it is
originally present in the food. Home canned f oods are deficient in this element. Vitamin
B
1 is killed by ordinary cooking temperatures if the temperature is kept up for a long
enough time. Short cooking kills a relatively small amount of vitamin B 1. Long
continued cooking kills practically all vitamin B 1. Vitamin B 1 is destroyed also
according to the temperature of the cooking. A relatively low temperature--220 degrees-
-may be kept up for a longer time than temperatures around 400 or 500 degrees. If subjected to exceedingly high temperatures, as are most goods put up in packages, such
as breakfast cereals, the food is practically devoid of vitamin B. In most such so-called cereal foods the empty package has more intrinsic value than the contents. The presence of acid helps to preserve the integrity of vitamin B
1. Foods that are
highly acid go through canning with very little such loss. Canned tomatoes are almost as
good food as raw tomatoes. However, few foods have the acid protective qualities of tomatoes, so we may say that non acid canned fruits or vegetables are to be condemned. Vitamin B
1 does not exist in any great concentration anywhere in nature. Its richest
sources are the germs of seeds, yeast, and liver. Throughout all nature, every living thing--plant and animal--is in a constant struggle for more vitamin B
1. The first part
wild animals eat of their victims is the vitamin rich liver. Birds eat seeds containing the
germ, while rejecting the polished seeds fro m which the germ has been removed. Rats
and other laboratory animals will fight to get a solution of thiamin (B 1) while rejecting
tasty concoctions containing sugar, meat, or honey. Plants that are injured immediately move the thiamin contained in the plant to the injured place, evidently in an effort to
promote better healing. Horticulturists have found that the addition of small amounts of
thiamin to growing plants very decidedly stimulates their growth. We may consider thiamin, then, as a scarce, very precious natural element. It exists only in sparse quantities in ordinary foods. Living things cons tantly struggle to get more of it. It is
suicidal that the human animal should throw this valuable element away as is done in
milling white flour or destroy it by the heat incident to cooking and canning. Any person eating canned meat, fruit, or vegetables should remember that he is eating
a food which formerly did contain vitamin B
1, but in the process of canning, this
precious element has been largely destroyed. He must look forward to some lowering of his resistance against infection, and to the development of some kind of disease, along
with a lessened ability to do work and a greater liability to fatigue and shortened life, if he persists in eating canned foods of any non-acid kind. It must not be inferred that canning destroys all of the vitamin B 1 in ordinary foods;
but it reduces the vitamin B 1 to such a degree that the inf ection-fighting elements in the
food are very greatly reduced. The canning of foods is therefore to be condemned, and
all civilized persons should be encouraged to eat their meat, fresh vegetables and fruits
in a fresh or previously frozen state. Frozen foods do not have the vitamin deficiencies
to be found in canned foods; so in any case where fresh food is not available, frozen
food should be the choice of the individual. There is one class of canned foods that may be eaten without fear in cases where the
fresh food of this type is not available. This is sea food. The main benefit from sea
foods (oysters, lobsters, shrimp, and salmon) is from the iodine they contain. The iodine is present in the canned as well as the fresh sea food; so while it is desirable to eat fresh
sea food, no great harm will be done if the canned article is substituted. All canned goods and packaged foods, with the exception of the canned acid fruits and
vegetables and sea foods, should be condemned as food unfit for consumption by
civilized communities. Other classes of food such as meat and milk should, if possible, be consumed fresh; but apparently meat does not suffer any great loss in ordinary
refrigeration, and milk does not suffer much loss in pasteurization. Some kinds of meat,
such as pork, carry parasitic disease. In these cases, the harm done by cooking is not so great as that which might be done by eating the meat rare. Cheese, cream, eggs, and butter are good, acceptable foods, and their c onsumption should be encouraged. Pastries
and desserts of all kinds should be prohibited,  since these are mostly composed of sugar
and white flour. Ordinary cake is perhaps the most pernicious food of all. The argument
has been brought forward that cake contains eggs and milk; but the quantities of these
are so small that they amount to nothing. Ice cream would perhaps be very much
improved and would become an acceptable food if sweetened by honey instead of sugar. As long as it contains the large amount of sugar it now contains, it must be considered
an unacceptable food except in relatively sma ll quantities. Ice cream could be prepared
with honey, the honey to be put in after all cooking or heating is over. The regime we set forth as acceptable would provide all the need of the optimum in
civilized diet. Fresh, whole grains, meat, honey, milk, eggs, butter and cheese are
fundamental foods elements. As the population of the United States and every other
civilized country which has consumed large quantities of sugar, white flour, and canned goods, is a definitely diseased group, having a history of years of subnormal living,
something must be done to make up for past deficiencies. A return to normal food alone
will never bring health up to a normal standard. A return to normal food will improve the condition of any person suffering from years of food deficiency, but will not give him the optimum. In order to reach the optimum, he must have a well-balanced mineral and vitamin intake, and to provide for past de ficiencies we must resort to so-called drug
store vitamins (concentrates). A proper mineral intake may be supplied by milk and cheese for calcium; a plentiful
supply of fresh meat for iron, and sea food for iodine. To make up for past dietary sins, concentrated vitamins should be taken for six
months to two years, in order that the individual may reach a point where, with his reserves restored, he can carry on with a balanced diet. The vitamin intake essential for the treatment of a deficiency disease is naturally
higher than the requirement for preventing a de ficiency. For this reason it is impractical,
if not impossible to adequately treat a defici ency disease by merely correcting the diet. In the selection of a concentrate, it is important to remember, first, that the original
deficiency is invariably multiple in origin. The diet has usually been deficient in not one or two, but in many or all of the vitamins. This is being further established every day, in
both the research laboratory and in clinical practice. It is essential that the concentrate contain all of the vitamins, both known and
unknown. Undoubtedly many of the vitamins essential in human nutrition have not as
yet been identified or synthetically reproduced. For this reason no synthetic preparation can completely replace the vitamins in which the average person may be deficient. Such
foods as yeast, liver and wheat germ are ex cellent sources of not only some of the
known vitamins, but also many of the unidentified naturally occurring associated factors
which are just as important in human nutrition as the fractions already known. A
millionth of a milligram of biotin may be as important in the daily diet as three milligrams of thiamin. In the selection of any vitamin concentrate bear in mind the need
for its containing as many of the vital vitamins as are found in our foods. Only natural
sources of the vitamins should be employed for synthetic mixtures alone cannot afford a
complete complex of the required factors, and without the so-called "unknown or unsynthesized" factors, few if any deficiency disorders can be cured. A new condition more serious than the one being treated may develop as the result of imbalance. The
great mass of people suffering from digestive disorders, heart symptoms, rheumatic
pains and aches, and fatigue will notice improved health conditions very soon after the
beginning of such a regime. A reversion in appearance to a younger age group will soon
be apparent. The skin will be brighter; the hair more nearly like the hair of a well fed animal, with a richer luster than before, a nd the ability to do physical and mental work
will be greatly enhanced. Those cases where actual organic change has taken place, of
course, need further medical or surgical attention. This means crippled hearts, distorted
and misshapen colons and scarred stomachs, the actual incidence of tumors, loss of
teeth, etc. A badly nourished person is never beautiful. The well nourished person cannot escape some degree of beauty, as health and beauty are inseparably bound
together. There is also need for a better, clearer understanding of how to judiciously choose a
diet which will contain the factors the body so desperately needs. Diet is a scientific
subject. An appeal to nothing but taste is a wrong approach to one of the most vital problems in health. Normally we tend to overeat on carbohydrate foods, for they have no selflimiting action on the appetite. A rich, natural food, such as honey will be tolerated only in reasonable quantities, and is self-limiting. Several