798
edits
Changes
Introducing Clients To The Need For A Lifestyle Change (view source)
Revision as of 19:49, 27 April 2021
, 19:49, 27 April 2021Created page with "= Lesson 89 - Introducing Clients To The Need For A Lifestyle Change = == What Do You Mean By “Change In Lifestyle?” == 89.1.1 False Ideas Restrain 89.1.2 Where Life Exi..."
= Lesson 89 - Introducing Clients To The Need For A Lifestyle Change =
== What Do You Mean By “Change In Lifestyle?” ==
89.1.1 False Ideas Restrain
89.1.2 Where Life Exists, Possibility Is
In the context of this lesson we will understand the concept of change in lifestyle to include those changes in both living and eating habits which are deemed by the practi- tioner as being essential for the restoration and maintenance of whatever level of health the present condition of the client will allow.
The client, guided by a knowledgeable practitioner, will be encouraged to leave the old ways that have failed him in the past and embark upon a new path, one designed es- pecially for him but one which is based upon the known laws of life, so that he can more fully realize his birth potential.
The client must be given to understand that he will be required to make some changes; that he will have to discard many of his former familiar, but false, beliefs and habits which cumulatively and progressively were responsible for his present unfortu- nate condition, whatever these may have been; that he will now be required to adopt more scientifically accurate, biologically appropriate (but, perhaps to him, somewhat strange) ways of eating and living.
It is important at the very beginning of a new relationship with a client to establish the fact that superb health is normal and that any deviation therefrom is totally and per- haps even inexcusably abnormal, being the result of certain errors in living and eating. He should be given to understand that some changes will necessarily have to be made abruptly and quickly; others perhaps less so, depending on what degree of health he wishes to achieve, and how fast.
The client must be brought to an understanding that superb health is a possible goal, but one that can be achieved only as certain changes are made to meet the structural and functional needs of the living body, sick or well, these being dictated solely by the nature of the human body, the way it is put together; by its ability to adapt slowly or rapidly, to change; and by the fact that the present condition of the client, whatever that may be, is the result of how well, or how poorly, these needs have been met during his lifetime.
The client must develop an understanding that superb health is a possible goal, one that he can achieve just as surely as hundreds of thousands of persons equally ill have done in the past and are presently doing, once they came to realize that they had to make certain biologically approved changes and then proceeded, always with careful guidan-
ce, to make them as and when required and as rapidly as individual circumstances war- ranted.
We must be able to convince our clients that we have either ourselves witnessed and/ or learned about people just like them, through our research, who left the old ways of eating and living, the old ways of sickness, fatigue and premature death, and embarked on a new adventure which required certain adjustments on their part, new ways of think- ing, definitive changes, some difficult to make but most actually quite easy and, in the doing, found to their great joy and personal satisfaction, that they had accomplished ex- actly what they had set out to do: they had attained their personal goal, they had even improved their health to an extent far beyond their earlier hopes.
Many began as physical wrecks and without hope but, before long, they had become eager participants in a manner of living and eating that they were now convinced, be- cause of their happy results, would bring them full recuperation and regeneration of body, mind and spirit. And, given sufficient time, they fulfilled their dream.
Those who intelligently recognized the need to make the necessary changes and then subsequently followed through in the doing, successfully overcame arthritis, depression, obesity, acne, breast tumors, asthma and a whole dictionary of affections, many deemed by the “authorities” as being “incurable.”
89.1.1 False Ideas Restrain
False ideas, old health-destroying habits, the disorders of life, drugs of all kinds, and all excess, these must all be cast aside in favor of new ways, new habits, new foods that encourage body building. Order and restraint must enter and become incorporated into the life plan, but there must come, also, a sense of adventure, of excitement, an aware- ness of one’s living body, a deep inner conviction that, as the ways of health replace the ways of disease, suffering and death, superb health will follow as naturally as the stars come out at night to glow and grace the darkened sky after the day has been spent.
89.1.2 Where Life Exists, Possibility Is
The professional practitioner must remember and convey to his most seriously-ill clients that where life exists, possibility is and will remain. This attitude must place the despair that so often pervades the mind and restrains progress. Tell your clients, in ad- vance, if need be, that it is possible to foretell or predict what an individual body is ca- pable of achieving when it is provided with the necessary wherewithal of life. Change in attitude may well be the most important change the more seriously-ill person needs to make. So many have had all hope taken away£ from them by one person or another or by one defeat after another, and the future looks dark. Just as the carpenter requires the tools of his trade to build a worthy structure, so must they receive the necessary nutrients of life to restore them to health and, thereafter, to maintain it in full capacity. It must be made clear to all clients that, in order to reach that longed-for goal of full health, change must become a part of their daily living, and not a once-in-a-while thing.
The changes of which we speak are, of course, by the very nature of the life process, all based singly and separately on the basic requisites of organic existence already delin- eated in this course. Each and every one, without exception, must be incorporated into the lifestyle of the sick and the well, as need and capacity so indicate. These requisites should be set forth by the practitioner in a pattern for performance that is deemed appro- priate for each client as his individual capacity to accept and utilize may warrant at the time, and adjusted as forward progress is made.
We must convey to the client that the body is a unitized whole and that we cannot neglect any single aspect of living unless we either completely destroy or limit the whole and that only as all the requisites of life, known and unknown, are incorporated into the
life script in amounts appropriate to each individual, depending upon his present state of health, will wellness of one cell and all cells together, the totality, be achieved.
== The Need To Inspire The Client ==
89.2.1 Establishing the Goals
89.2.2 Attitudes Are Contagious 89.2.3 Keeping on Target
89.2.4 Veras’s Story
89.2.1 Establishing the Goals
In order to obtain maximum cooperation and subsequent performance, to say nothing of reaping the rewards of correct eating and living on the part of the client, it will be necessary for the practitioner to convince the client that following the regimen that you recommend to him will benefit him in ways which are, to a certain extent, predictable well in advance and, to a certain extent, with a fair degree of accuracy.
Predictability is so because we humans are basically the same. We possess gross de- tails that are quite similar, it is only in the minor ones that we differ. Therefore, when we behave in a manner contrary to our fundamental needs, we can predict with surety that the health of the totality will diminish and in an exactly equal amount. But, the opposite is true, also for when we answer our body’s fundamental needs, and do so in all respects, the body responds by discarding the old in favor of the new; in other words, like the con- tractor called to make repairs on a dilapidated building who must first tear down before he can rebuild with new and better materials so, too, must sick persons discard, before they can rebuild!
89.2.2 Attitudes Are Contagious
Attitudes are contagious, so it is important for the practitioner to present the possible benefits which can accrue to the client in an enthusiastic and convincing manner. In other words, as practitioners we should avoid the “pie in the sky” approach in favor of more reasonable immediate goals, ones attainable, in most instances, fairly easily and within a comparatively short time.
These goals can range from the physical (the elimination of certain rather minor digestive troubles, for example), the cosmetic (losing that look of utter fatigue that so many of our clients wear on their first visit), and even economic (no longer required to buy this or that drug or prosthetic gadget).
The list of possible benefits, of course, could be extensive, but several, comparative- ly easily attainable, immediate goals can and should be established initially and, then, others advanced from time to time as the need for further encouragement may arise.
89.2.3 Keeping on Target
Sometimes clients require being reminded of where they have been, where they are now, and where they are going; kept on target, as it were. Presenting the little goals, the “baby steps” we so often talk about, can usually convey to the client sufficient inspira- tion to keep him following the straight path to complete freedom from disease and suf- fering.
The client should be told that you, the teacher, will provide him with the necessary training to enable him eventually to “go it alone,” and this, too, in a relatively short pe- riod of time; that he will be able to overcome whatever problem is troubling him on his own without having recourse to his former “run-to-the-doctor syndrome.”
It will be necessary from time to time to discuss with the client the importance of his becoming so knowledgeable about the science of life (Natural Hygiene) that he will
feel confident to “go it alone,” to take charge of his own Self. This concept, of course, should be discussed preferably before he experiences his first healing crisis, or else he may become completely confused or even disillusioned.
89.2.4 Veras’s Story
The case of Vera illustrates this last point beautifully. Vera, a woman in her early 50s, was suffering from a very bad bronchial disorder which had troubled her for well over 15 years. In addition to the lung involvement, she experienced angina “attacks” from time to time. The doctor had told her she had a severely weakened heart muscle and must be careful not to “overdo.”
Vera’s medications consisted of nitroglycerine tablets, antibiotics, steroids from time to time (prednisone), and digoxin, all of which she took from time to time as directed by the family physician. Additionally, on her own, she took a multitude of vitamins and had done so for years. In spite of all her “treatments” and the various medications, prescrip- tion and nonprescription, her energy level remained dangerously low and her ankles and legs remained swollen with edema. Vera was a very discouraged woman.
Vera had been referred to us by a pastoral counselor in whom she had much con- fidence and, since she was already seemingly convinced that the medical “treatments” offered had failed her in the past and were certainly not helping her now, she had agreed to “try” Natural Hygiene.
At our initial meeting, we reviewed Vera’s eating diary which, as suggested, she had kept for the previous two weeks. It was obvious, of course, that most of this client’s trou- bles were the result of a lifetime of incorrect feeding habits, and that a primary need was to detoxify her body.
However, we learned that her husband, Joe, was suffering from severe mental de- pression, caused no doubt from worry about his wife’s condition. He had been forced to take a temporary leave of absence from his work. Under the circumstances, Vera felt that it would be inadvisable for her to go to a fasting retreat at this time.
Therefore, it was necessary to move in another direction. Accordingly, we explained to our client that we had no doubts that she could improve her health status and to a con- siderable extent by making some, at first rather simple, changes, these to be followed at a future time by other changes, as warranted from time to time. We sensed that Ve- ra did not feel inclined to make any radical changes for fear of upsetting her already concerned husband and driving him, perhaps, into an even deeper depression. We em- phasized, however, that doing it this way, making small changes slowly, would require considerably more time than it would if fasting had been the program of choice. Vera agreed that this was the way she must take. She would see what the future would bring.
We introduced our client to the seven stages in the biological evolution of pathology. She immediately saw the sequence of events as they had transpired in her own and in her husband’s lives. She recounted for us some of her own past symptoms and history and we discussed how they seemed to suggest this or that stage. She enthusiastically grasped the concept that it was possible for her to retrace the various stages in this biological evolution and that, in so doing, her energy and general health would gradually improve.
In passing, we commented that, during the retracement, it is often possible for certain persons to relive the past; that is, they may be called upon to experience some of their earlier symptoms as hidden pockets of poison are flushed out of their hiding places from time to time. Vera indicated that she understood this possibility and thought this might reasonably be expected.
However, apparently we failed to make a deep enough impression on Vera at this ini- tial presentation and the subject did not immediately come up again. Things went along exceptionally well for some time. Vera was able consistently to reduce her drug intake, the nitroglycerine being completely set aside and the antibiotics, also. No steroids were
now used and the digoxin was considerably reduced. As for the vitamins, they became a thing of memory only.
The coughing up of mucus became less troublesome, her vitality level grew enabling her to participate in the activities of her beloved church, the digestive upsets that had plagued her for many years were all but forgotten and, all in all, both Vera and we were well pleased with ourselves.
Then it happened! A violent attack of coughing. Mucus poured out of Vera’s throat gagging and choking her. She gasped for breath. She panicked. Dr. Ralph Cinque, in a lecture on June 27, 1979, reminded us that “The asthmatic often becomes terrified be- cause of his wheezing and gasping for breath, sometimes feeling as though his life is at stake which naturally alarms anyone concerned. However, only occasionally is a per- son’s respiratory obstruction so great that this is the case. Most of the time the attack is not nearly so bad as the victim might think.” [From Overcoming Asthma by Beth Snod- grass. Available from Life Science.]
We had not prewarned Vera of this possibility. So, the “run-to-the-doctor syndrome” grasped ahold of Vera’s mind and, almost instinctively, like a well-trained animal obeys its master, Vera trotted off to the very doctor who had failed her for over fifteen years!
She was immediately placed in the hospital where she was given a variety of tests, including X rays and scans, and plied with all manner of drugs.
The cough went away and the mucus dried up, just as they had throughout the years past. The drugs accomplished their purpose: the nerves were narcotized, the symptoms suppressed. Vera remained in the hospital for nine days and then returned home, weak and spent. The “attack” had cost her well over $11,000!
Some time later, a wan and weary Vera presented herself in our office once again. She recounted her story, exclaiming at the end, “What a fool I was!” She had finally re- membered our telling her about what might occur as she retraced the former stages in the evolution of pathology on her journey back to health. She stated the events and the con- firmation of knowledge simply. The conviction of truth was reflected both in her manner and in her eyes as she exclaimed, “I was just having a healing crisis, wasn’t I?
Vera, you see, had not failed. We, her practitioners, had failed. We had failed to ex- plain in simple terms BEFORE THE EVENT, and often from time to time as a reminder of what might possibly happen as retracement begins and accelerates.
There were other healing crises to follow, but now Vera was able to take them each in stride because she now fully understood the nature of a healing crisis and what, except in very exceptional circumstances, she could do on her own to remedy the situation. She understood now that her body was always in a state of flux, of change, and was so more now than ever before; that when a healing crisis came, she should keep warm and just stand aside and let the wisdom resident within her own body take charge and get on with the healing of hurting cells while she watched and waited and rested, confident in the final outcome.
We saw Vera not too long ago. She is still too thin but both she and Joe are on a clear path, a Hygiene path, that will lead them together to a life of great joy and boundless energy for living and extended and purposeful life. Vera and Joe are now “going it on their own.” It has been some years now since Vera made her last trip to any doctor’s of- fice and she is confident now that she will never have to enter another hospital, unless compelled to do so by some unforeseen accidental injury that may require perhaps the services of an orthopedic surgeon. Changes were required in Vera’s lifestyle and she has successfully made all adjustments in philosophy and in practice. We are certain now that Vera will not panic again.
== The Practitioner Presents The Plan ==
Clients must be convinced that the practitioner in charge is designing a program specif- ically tailored to meet their precise needs, one that will enable them to assume full re-
sponsibility for their own care and well-being, thus removing them from all necessity to depend any longer on the medical establishment for pills and potions that serve only to poison.
The capable practitioner must teach clients Natural Hygiene’s rules of life and con- vince them that, by following the simple Hygienic ways of eating and living, they will gradually find their own aches and pains either considerably diminished or even no longer existent; that their impaired and troubled digestive and other afflictions will soon become but a memory. They must come to an understanding, by presentation of or the experiencing of evidential results, that it is possible for them to see their own energy levels soar to heights perhaps unknown since earliest childhood; that they may even ex- perience once again the joy of sleeping undisturbed the whole night through and being able to awaken at dawn with vigor renewed, ready to meet the challenges and problems of each new day. But, for all this to happen, change is not only suggested, but mandato- ry.
== The Client Must Be In Charge ==
89.4.1 Millie’s Story
Clients must be responsible for making all changes. It must and should be made clear to them that they will be in charge of their own lives and that they will thus be designing their own future. Before they sought relief, but they gained no health. Now, they must make changes because they have a new goal, the attainment of a higher level of health. They must be brought to an understanding of the most important reality of life: that they can FREE THEMSELVES of all their sick cares and concerns as well as from the finan- cial burden that being sick imposed upon them, a burden which kept them from enjoying many of the simpler pleasures of life; and that all this wonderful new world can be theirs by making some simple changes in their manner of eating and living, changes which have proved in the past throughout all of history to be health-building, changes which will replace their former health-destroying habits, changes which will soon bring them an abundantly rich life instead of their present half-life of sickness and suffering, one filled with the spectre of premature death.
As a specialist in Life Science, this is what you have to offer and what they have to gain: a life without pain and complete freedom from all sickness and disease. But, they must be made to understand that the new trip is not free, that no one can accomplish these promised and highly fortuitous results FOR them, that they must do it ALL ON THEIR OWN and that many changes may be required of them.
Furthermore, just as walking the sickness road can be a very lonely walk, indeed, just so, travelling the road to health must necessarily often cause one to desert the herd and be somewhat lonely, too. But, and this is what must be emphasized, WITH A HAP- PY DIFFERENCE!
The sickness road is one filled with pain and suffering. It is a downward trek that” leads to more involved pathology and eventually, more often than not, to a life filled with untold agony and unpredictable pathologies. In contrast, the Hygienic life script unfolds like a happy drama and opens up a joy-filled road where there is no pain, no suffering. It is an upward path that can expand the mind, ripen the senses, open new doors, impart an expanded spiritual awareness of the meaning of life, and often provide an opportunity to help others to know the joys of living the Hygienic way. In other words, by proving himself amenable to change by the doing, the client can find a new purpose for living and, as always, with purpose comes performance and with performance in the arena of life, as contrasted with the lonely life of pain, all loneliness leaves, never to return.
Lastly, our clients must also comprehend that it has taken time and many mistakes, both known and unknown, to change the potential they possessed at birth to whatever state of diminished health they are presently experiencing, and that it will also take time
to achieve whatever level of health is now possible considering the client’s age, his pre- sent condition, his residual vitality and how well he follows the Hygienic road, and that sometimes the amount of time required will be more than we either like or anticipate.
However, clients should be assured, and this from time to time, that with each im- provement, the speed of recovery will begin to accelerate, the healing crises will become less frequent and less severe, until finally they are no more. The ultimate goal will then have been reached and the, improved health level thereafter need only be maintained. The changes will, at that point, no longer be necessary, because they have become a part of one’s natural life plan.
89.4.1 Millie’s Story
Millie learned all of the foregoing the hard way. She came to us originally with a severely-impacted colon, diagnosed as a spastic colon. It had been years since she had had a normal movement. Enemas and cathartics, headaches and extreme lassitude were all a way of life with Millie.
She hated her life. She hated the constant fatigue that prevented her from doing so many of the things she wanted to do. A divorcee, she said that the constant enema-taking and the fatigue kept her from having any fun! She was only 42 years of age.
We explained to Millie that the enemas and the cathartics were her “crutches” and that, so long as she continued to use her crutches, she would never be able to “go it alone.” She would always, forever after, require her crutches. The pills and potions were not removing the cause(s) of her trouble and, indeed, only served to add to them. These substances were all chemical poisons and, by using them, she was simply adding more poison to all the poisons resident within her own body. It was this poison that had caused and was continuing to cause her problems. Adding poison to poison would only serve further to kill more cells and to reduce even more the tone of the muscles of her diges- tive tract. If she continued their use, she might well never again be able to have a normal bowel movement. We told her that it would be necessary for her to make some changes in her manner of eating and living, that she must now, as one of our students from Ken- tucky recently remarked, “make getting the finest food her most important priority.”
Like so many others, some successful, some not, Millie agreed to “try” Natural Hy- giene. We explained why she should restrict her diet choices to the finest of natural raw foods, why she should now begin a regular and vigorous exercise program, why she should increase her rest and sleep periods, why she must now drink distilled water and when. In fact, we laid out a precise program for our client to follow, a step-by-step plan of action.
Millie took over and did extremely well. She followed the regimen laid out for her, making few mistakes. As a matter of fact, Millie became so imbued with enthusiasm about her program and her progress that she began to preach Natural Hygiene to all and sundry who would listen.
As her reward, within three months, Millie was having a natural bowel movement (bm) two and three times a week! This was like a miracle to her. After a year, all the digestive disorders of the past had practically disappeared; the heaviness, the excess gas, the occasional nausea and belching, these were no longer any concern. Millie was once again going here and there, having the “good time” she had so yearned for. Rarely now did she have to have recourse to an enema.
At the end of the second year, the bms were coming almost every day. Once in a great while, but only rarely, Millie would have one of her former trying headaches. But, she wasn’t satisfied, she wanted it all and NOW! She felt she needed two or more bms every single day and felt annoyed when such did not happen. She wanted to be rid of her headaches once and for all and forever. She wanted someone to wave the magic wand!
Without consulting us, Millie went to another practitioner, not a Hygienist, and en- rolled in a “course of treatments” which were to take away all her cares in one magic
moment. The cost of this series of muscle and bone adjustments, as we learned later, was $1,500.00!
Well, a short time ago, Millie came back. The practitioner, at her request, provided us with his assessment of her progress. To Millie’s chagrin and astonishment, the erst- while waver of the magic wand was not $1,500.00 richer but, sadly, “disappointed” in Millie’s “lack of progress.” The “treatments” had failed.
We reminded a rather chastened Millie once again that there is no magic wand, that healing takes time; that not we, but our bodies are in charge. It is our inner wisdom, not we, that must be in control. We humans make too many mistakes when left on our own to be in charge of such responsibility. Our inner wisdom is so designed that it does not make mistakes and cannot just be diverted from its tasks by our whims and wishes. Just so long as we cooperate with that inner wisdom by supplying the correct tools, as and when required and in the proper amounts, meaningful progress will be made. Health will happen. Unhealthful ways of living always demand a toll of disease but abundant health follows in the wake of correct practices.
On its own, our inner wisdom will establish the necessary priorities, determine how these may best be addressed, lay out the plan, the ways and means, with exact directions and specifications; and then address each in its own manner and at the appropriate time. We are required only to provide the tools, then step aside and watch the magic within unfold.
Millie sat quietly, deep in thought as we quietly reminded her of this wisdom of the ages. She didn’t have much to say, but we knew that Millie had learned a valuable les- son. Millie will wait now for time to bring its miracle.
Encouraging words help clients when the way gets tough. Knowledge and under- standing can inspire the necessary changes both in practice and thinking. Clients must grasp the concept that health is, for them, indeed, a possible goal; that Natural Hygiene (Life Science) provides the ways and means of achieving superb health. We need to im- part to our clients the confidence that you, as a practitioner, will teach the client how to live according to the laws of life and how to provide the tools for always living in health.
If we can cause our clients to believe that they can be in complete charge of their own lives and that they can work this miracle, then we will be instrumental in bringing about the required changes. And, then, too if we can bring to them full understanding of the fact that their former dependence on the medical community was not only totally nonproductive, but actually destructive of life, then we are to be commended for that is the first important change.
A client must realize, and deeply, that it will take time to accomplish the healing and to restore whatever level of health s/he is presently capable of achieving and that the re- sults will depend on how well s/he follows directions. All diseased persons differ only in the degree of involvement and the site. All can respond favorably to health-building ways, but they must not wait beyond the physiological point of no return. In other words, there is a limit beyond which full recovery is impossible. This, too, is a change in think- ing because, for so long, they have depended on that “magic” pill or, if that fails, upon some fantastic operation that they believe will remedy the hurt.
== What Kinds Of Changes Are Required ==
The kinds of changes which must be identified for the client will, of course, vary from individual to individual but, surprisingly, they almost always fall into the following cat- egories:
# Doingawaywithcertainoutmodedbeliefsandsuperstitionsthatcanonlyservetoham- per maintenance of full health or perhaps even to destroy it, if it is now present.
# Causingachangeinattitudethroughknowledgeaboutthekindsofhabitsandpractices in eating and lifestyle that are recognized as being destructive to health.
# Developingadeepconvictionabouttheneedforthechangesrecommendedbytheprac- titioner, this obtained through knowledge of what is believed to be essential to health maintenance.
# Theintroductionofpositiveactionthroughpractice,graduallyorabruptly,asindividual situations and conditions warrant, eliminating all destructive habits and replacing them with Hygienic, truly scientific, practices known to be instrumental in building health, not disease.
== Outmoded Beliefs And Superstitions ==
89.6.1 Mike’s Story
89.6.2 Other Superstitions 89.6.3 The Case of Rev. Kim
Most people today are mere puppets dangling at the end of strings, skillfully manip- ulated by self-serving corporate interests.
For example, there are few Americans today who are not complete and willing serfs to the medico-drug-insurance complex. As we look around at our own friends, relatives and neighbors, we find that every one, almost without exception, goes regularly to a physician for a check-up, even though many physicians openly acknowledge that this is worthless. We recall years ago reading an article in the Long Beach newspaper, an arti- cle written by various physicians, which said, in effect, that such trips were a waste of money and meaningless, that nobody was perfect and that they were simply a means to an end, getting people to come on a regular basis to the physician of choice; and it did help to pay the rent!
Most people we know dutifully swallow their prescribed pills, submit to X rays at the slightest suggestion of “their” doctor, would never fail to keep their medical lifeline (their insurance policies) up to date, and grasp at the medical man every time they have the slightest ache or pain. Each one seems to be content with his “allergies” and his pills, having full confidence that somehow, in some way, “the doctors will find a ‘cure’ for whatever happens to ail him and the rest of suffering humankind.”
Just last week a friend sat in our family room and told how he had gladly and will- ingly volunteered himself as a guinea-pig for a mass experiment to test certain drugs proposed as a possible “cure” for diabetes. The group sponsoring this mass experiment with other people’s lives had apparently just received a multi-million dollar grant.
We gasped in horror at his news. There he sat at least 50 pounds overweight, highly flushed of face, wheezing and coughing as he talked—a prime candidate for a stroke, the mark of the needle plainly visible on his forearm. We inquired as to the nature of the injected drug. He didn’t know, other than that it was some NEW drug that “they” hoped would soon prove its merit.
We asked our friend, “Why?” Why had he let himself be injected by any chemical, to say nothing of permitting an unknown and untried substance, about which he knew noth- ing, to be introduced into his bloodstream? Did he not realize that introducing any for- eign substance into the blood could, almost instantaneously, lead to anaphylactic shock, with instant death a distinct possibility? Our friend nodded his head. He agreed that Yes, all that could happen but, “You see,” he thoughtfully went on to say, “Unless all of us help these doctors, they never will find the cures for all these diseases.” Like a puppet on a string he had responded to the siren call of “Cure!”
Hygienists know that all this is pure hum-bug, anti-health and anti-scientific non- sense. They also know that this trust in the medical community and in their drugs dies hard. In the back of the head of almost every new client who comes to you for help will remain the thought that if THIS (meaning you) fails, he can always hurry back to the known and familiar ways of medicine.
Thus, the Hygienist must point his client in a new direction. He must prove that all drugs are anti-health. He must remind his clients, when the issue arises, as it will, that the medical community has had over 30 centuries to prove that drugs and their methods are instrumental in curing disease and that, in every instance, they have failed. Drugs and surgery cure nothing.
Clients must change their minds and, accordingly, their practices in this respect. All drugs are anti-health and so acknowledged by the very persons who prescribe them. They are known to damage the nervous structure and actually to destroy cells. Drugs suppress symptoms, but remove no cause. Clients must further understand that surgery removes an effect, but not the cause and unless, and until, the cause or causes are re- moved, the effect, the disease, will not only remain, even though temporarily abated, but will worsen. This, too, is an important change in thinking that every client must make before he can expect to improve his health.
It is true that most of the people who seek the help of a Life Scientist will be some- what, if not totally, disillusioned about the effectiveness of medicines, at least in their case, even before they seek our help.
But, we should be aware of the fact that most of them know nothing whatsoever, or perhaps only a very little, about natural ways of healing. What you suggest to them is all foreign territory, a vast unknown, and like pioneers setting out for a new land, they have hope, but little else, because they presently lack knowledge.
It is the practitioner’s job, if s/he, can, to drive the nail into the coffin, to bury all faith in medicines and surgery as the way to health. We must get across to our clients the relationship between cause and effect. Our clients must be brought by us into an un- derstanding of the scientific sense of removing cause before they can reasonably expect once again to know health. They must be convinced by your attitude and by how you look and by what you say that YOU, the Hygienic practitioner, possess knowledge of what they must do to accomplish their objective.
Another false belief that grasps the American mind like the tentacles of an octopus holds fast to a tasty morsel is the need for enormous amounts of protein, this belief, of course, having been promoted now for almost a century, as Life Scientist well know, by the meat and dairy and other self-serving interests, particularly and knowingly or un- knowingly, by the recipients of large research grants indebted to corporate interests for their research monies.
“But, where do you get your protein?” becomes the plaintive cry of almost every new client when first faced by their new diets, so brainwashed have they been in this regard. One of our students in Sweden recently wrote us that “every adult male needs 250 grams of protein every day!” Where had he gotten this piece of information? Well, he had read it somewhere, he told us!
If a client has this or some similar idea etched in his mind, he must be depro- grammed. One can accomplish the required deprogramming only by substituting knowl- edge, an understanding of the scientific fact, for example, that the primary need of the human body is NOT for protein, but for single molecule carbohydrates, the kind abun- dantly supplied in fresh raw fruits. He must be instructed in the ways of catalysis and how the body recycles its discarded protein; about how the body, in fact, can change one kind of protein into another kind of protein as may be required for metabolic purposes; (that the body cannot and does not use protein, only amino acids, and that these are con- tained in fresh fruits which, when eaten, save the person who eats fruits all the energy wasted in processing concentrated protein and complex carbohydrates, energy which can then be diverted to more constructive tasks. Unless true Hygienic knowledge becomes incorporated into the client’s subconscious, unless full perception on his part becomes a reality, all the doubt—the uneasiness which so limits progress—will remain.
Thousands of people, indeed millions, believe that herbs will restore a sick person to health. Health food stores stock their shelves with a wide variety of herbs. In fact, herb sales represent a major part of their income. Clients will surely ask you about this herb
and that herb and why you do not recommend herbs? Or vitamins? Or brewer’s yeast? Or a host of other magic substances. As a student of Life Science, of Natural Hygiene, you have learned about all these things, or will learn about them. This information has all been carefully documented and planned for your enrichment, to arm you well so that you will be enabled to meet the needs of clients for new knowledge to replace the old beliefs and superstitions. Without confidence in your knowledge and in the program pro- posed to a client by you, that client will make only limited progress, if any.
The horror of fasting is a prime example of beliefs that die hard. The average person, particularly here in America, the land of Surfeit Plus, is firmly convinced that missing a, single meal will cause him extreme anguish. School children MUST be “fortified with a good breakfast!” This is gospel truth, not open to debate. Fasting is what starving people do! He knows from watching the boob tube what starving can do to a person. You can’t talk him into going without food!
Clients, therefore, must be given understanding of what the difference between fast- ing and starving is. Your new client will not understand that fasting, even for a short time, will allow the body to achieve a higher level of health and that prolonged fasting may well be the single most important way to be restored to a level of health such as s/ he has not been privileged to know in an entire lifetime.
Clients must be disabused of their antipathy, even horror, of fasting, and this can only be accomplished when one imparts to the client the known facts about fasting, that it is a biologically well-accepted modality which provides the physiological rest required for healing to happen and to happen with the fastest possible speed.
89.6.1 Mike’s Story
Mike’s story illustrates just how difficult it can be sometimes to remove from the subconscious mind this fear of fasting. Mike, age 56, has had rheumatoid arthritis for some 15 years. He had been referred to us by a former client. We were told that he would be unable to come to our office because he could not negotiate steps and also, because of his condition, if he did come, he would have to stand during the entire consultation. We agreed, therefore, to make a house call.
We were deeply moved at our first meeting with Mike. There he stood, emaciated, tall, and straight as an arrow, propped up on crutches, his face wreathed in smiles. You see, he had been given hope by his friend.
We immediately know that Mike was in the advanced, final stages of rheumatoid arthritis. He had to be suffering great pain. His fingers were twisted and curved. He could barely move his head, one are was completely motionless. With his one moveable arm, Mike gestured for us to be seated and then he swung over to his chair, one espe- cially designed for arthritics. It lowered him slowly and gently to a sitting position. The smile remained fixed on Mike’s face.
We knew that the only help for this man lay in fasting but Mike knew nothing of Life Science. His housekeeper, herself terribly obese and obviously diseased, provided him for breakfast boxed cereals and milk, sometimes followed by two eggs. Occasionally, he told us, he also had a glass of canned orange juice and always several cups of coffee. Luncheon was a sandwich, usually made of white bread spread with either canned tu- na and mayonnaise or with peanut butter and jelly. At this meal he also had coffee. His evening meal was provided by “Meals for Millions” and consisted of some combination of the four basic groups. At this meal, he drank either milk or coffee.
Mike lived alone except for his housekeeper. He was a veteran living on his veteran’s pension. The housekeeper worked for room and board. She did the shopping, kept the premises reasonably clean and prepared two meals. It was obvious that Mike could not afford to go to a fasting institution, if he had been able to get there in his condition. After discussing the matter with him, it was obvious, too, that he wouldn’t have gone if he had been the wealthiest man in the world! Fasting, to Mike, was for those persons abandoned
on a raft somewhere in mid-ocean, or for primitives living in some remote corner of far off India or Africa, certainly not for him.
Obviously, here was a crying need for change, so how did we accomplish it? We took baby steps, making small changes count. The first important change we suggested to Mike was to forego his usual breakfast in favor of a fruit breakfast. He agreed that he could do this. Then, we suggested that he reduce his coffee intake. Mike was quite enthusiastic about our suggested changes.
We remained with Mike about an hour and then left, promising to return in two weeks. We left him with the first lesson in our Applied Nutrition Course, the one that recounts the stages in the evolution of pathology. We felt this was probably a good way to begin Mike’s deprogramming and to establish in his mind the concept of change as it might apply to him, the idea that he might be able to retrace his own life script and some day return to health.
Before the two weeks were up, Mike was on the telephone. He had a special tele- phone hook-up which enabled him to talk into a speaker and thus did not have to hold a telephone. Otherwise he would have had no way to communicate with the outside world. He complained of extreme weakness and said that he had felt it necessary to resume hav- ing his two eggs for breakfast, eating them after he finished his fruit.
We felt it was time to go back for another visit. This time we went armed with Lesson Two which explains, in simple terms, some basic information about carbohydrates, fats and proteins. We reviewed again with Mike the biological evolution of pathology and he said he understood about where he was presently in the evolution, that he had some real tough sledding ahead but he was confident he could make it. We felt that Mike had pro- gressed extremely well. He had changed from a man filled with doubts into a possibility thinker; one filled, indeed, with “Positivities.” Now, he was to acquire even more knowl- edge to fortify his conviction that change was possible. Old ideas and superstitions seem to fade and eventually disappear when replaced by knowledge and truth!
Within four months, Mike was eating two fruit meals a day, no longer ate his eggs every morning and was down to a single cup of coffee per meal. Of course, lacking his former stimulants, he became extremely weak, resting all day for the most part in his elevated bed. His bed was raised just high enough to permit Mike to slide out. You see, he cannot bend his legs, the knee joints have long since been removed surgically.
The housekeeper left to be replaced by a university student from mainland China, a fine young man who sets out sufficient fruit for two meals. He keeps the premises spot- less. However, his school schedule leaves Mike alone all day.
By, this time, Mike had also eliminated all his vitamins, the steroids, and reduced his aspirin intake (or Tylenol) to 10 per day. Sometimes he had to grit his teeth to bear the pain, hut he did it. There was no need to suggest hot baths to relieve his agony. He was unable to get down into a tub. Then, Mike made a major decision. He was going to fast for one day. This was a banner day. We felt like firing the cannon and running up the flag of victory. Our man was to be wonderfully surprised. On his fast day, Mike found, to his amazement, that he had very little pain! However he felt dizzy and even weaker, a rather scary experience for someone who had to remain all day in bed and alone.
Several weeks ago, we went on our monthly visit to Mike. As usual, he was in bed and, also as usual, smiling. He recounted for us how well he was doing. He was able now to walk 15 times every day back and forth down the long hall to the living room. He could now move his head more and, perhaps most wonderful of all, he had so much more energy than just a few weeks ago. Mike announced that he had decided to take still another step forward. He would now have his two fruit meals per day and, for his evening meal, a salad plus a baked potato and avocado! Mike would no longer now be dependent on “Meals for Millions,” certainly a most worthy and commendable ef- fort but one, unfortunately, which knows nothing about Natural Hygiene. Mike said he was convinced now that the principles of Natural Hygiene were correct principles which
had already proved their worth to him. We encouraged him to go forward, that now his progress would accelerate. Mike’s eyes shone!
Just a few days ago, Mike telephoned. He had made up his mind. On his own, he was planning to fast—this time for 36 hours. He said he felt wonderful and had reduced the pain pills down now to only four pills a day. Mike wants it all now. He has discard- ed the old ideas, the old superstitions. He is well on the road to better health. He is still studying about Natural Hygiene, the study lessons propped up before him. Knowledge, even though imparted slowly, has wrought the miracle of change in Mike. It has brought conviction. He now knows that there is only one possible way to improve one’s health and that is by living healthfully.
89.6.2 Other Superstitions
Another superstition that is really hard to remove from the minds of clients is that in our meal planning, we have to adhere to the four basic food groups. My how some clients will argue about this totally erroneous concept. With such clients, it is well to be fortified with some good solid knowledge about how the human digestive system works. We always have ready a quart bottle, some vinegar and some baking soda. We put some water in the bottle and then add a little vinegar followed by a teaspoonful or so of the baking soda and Voila! It fizzes! Most of our clients have experienced this fizzing in their own stomachs often enough to see the connection. They receive a study lesson on the digestive system and they soon become disenchanted with the four basic groups con- cept, convinced that their own digestive disaster scene has been caused by incorrect food combinations. Understanding the digestive scene makes the idea of simple meals more understandable to them because, perhaps for the first time in their lives, they compre- hend that the digestive process is a chemical, mechanical and electrical, very involved, process and that the more we add to the confusion by eating heterogeneous masses of foods, the less real nutrition will result. Why pay out all that money for food that never reaches the REAL you, the world of the cells!
Understanding how the digestive organs work, at least understanding this in gross terms, disabuses most clients of the idea that they can eat anything and everything, as and when they feel like eating, and still enjoy full health. It helps them to appreciate the scientifically-demonstrable fact that fruits are the foods to which we, by virtue of the structure and function of our digestive equipment, are best adapted and from which we humans will receive the finest nourishment. Making this adjustment in their thinking can change sick people into sturdy, strong, miraculously well people.
Clients must also disabuse their minds of the popular delusion, as Dr. Herbert M. Shelton terms it, that eating great quantities of food is necessary to health and strength. We used to believe that ourselves! We used to believe that it was necessary to provide great variety in order to enjoy our meals. Brandy, our collie, disabused us of that idea. Every morning, Brandy gets his dried figs and every evening his baked corn meal cakes, his pinto beans, lettuce and his egg. Every evening, he starts to drool at the same time. He doesn’t need a clock! Every evening, he eats that same meal and then licks the bowl until it shines. Very rarely is his meal changed. Oh! Occasionally, we will substitute a piece of avocado for the egg, or a bit of cheese, but that is all. You see, Brandy doesn’t even want variety!
We notice that our birds eat certain things at just about the same hour every day, as do the rabbits and the moles and the desert squirrels. The beans fall from the mesquite trees and soon are all gone, hidden in burrows for sustenance during the winter months. Humans don’t require so much variety. They don’t need so much food. They sicken on complex meals. Yes! Sometimes necessity forces change upon us.
Another popular idea that is around these days is the concept that our bodies are cry- ing for protein, for enormous amounts of protein. Clients find that change here is vital. Again knowledge of body happenings is the only way to bring about such change. They
must learn that simple molecule carbohydrates are our primary need and that when these are in short supply, as happens on the usual protein-starch-fat-sugar diet of the average person in America today, energy levels fall, nerves become deranged and health fails.
Our clients are victims of their own transgressions, transgressions fostered by super- stitions, beliefs and the mores of the times in which all of us live. The list of possible er- roneous ideas held by individual clients would probably fill a library. Many are of mod- ern origin, inculcated in the minds of the average person by direct and subliminal adver- tising; others have their origins in cultural mores which have been handed down from one generation to the next, perhaps for thousands of years. Many false ideas have also been inculcated in the minds of the very teachers who are presently instructing our chil- dren today, when they themselves sat as little children in the classrooms of their time. The “need” to be vaccinated against this or that virus or germ is a classic example of this last superstition.
It is the happy task of the informed practitioner to impart the knowledge which will light the lamp of conviction, that will bring about changes in thinking and changes in doing; the kind of changes required to make sick people well again.
Probably the most health-destroying of all superstitions is the one that has been around the longest: the idea that drugs can be instrumental in “curing” this or that ail- ment. Hygienists marvel that humans can be so stupid as to believe that taking more poi- sons into an already poisoned body will restore health to a sick person when strong men, in the prime of life, can be felled by the very same poison as surely as if penetrated in a vital organ by a well-aimed bullet!
But, that seems to be the perverseness of mankind. It is one of the great mysteries of the ages. Otherwise highly-intelligent men and women, all over the world, dutifully swallow their pills—Paul Erlich’s “magic bullets!” And all because their “doctor” tells them to!
Our clients do not possess our knowledge. Natural Hygiene is a totally strange con- cept to them, one about which they have grave doubts. They must be motivated by us to learn that health must be built; that it follows change; that we cannot poison ourselves into health, only into the grave!
To accomplish whatever changes are desirable in a client’s thinking and especially about the effectiveness of drugs in restoring health, we practitioners have to produce re- sults! Our clients have to be shown by whatever means at our command that poisons kill, they do not and cannot become the instrument of health. We must show our clients that, when they continue to indulge the causes of disease, disease will happen; but when they choose to seek after health-promoting ways, then they will be enabled to stand aside in awe and watch their troubling disease replaced by health. This kind of change can only be brought about by education and, as Hygienists, we well know that it must come or health will remain an elusive impossibility.
89.6.3 The Case of Rev. Kim
The Rev. Kim case illustrates how changing one’s confidence in magic bullets into an understanding of the importance of living healthfully, of obtaining every day a full quota of all the biodynamic requisites of life, can also change sickness into health and even bind married couples together into an even closer relationship.
The Rev. had some kind of obscure disease that had been variously diagnosed. No- body knew for sure what ailed him but, nevertheless, he had been prescribed numerous drugs, including a tranquilizing mood-altering drug. His condition had forced him to give up his pastoral duties and to go on a disability allowance. His wife had to work to support the two of them. There were several married children who lived out of state, so they were more or less on their own.
The Rev., it seems, was so depressed and frustrated by his inability to continue with his church work that he had actually become physically abusive as well as mentally so. In fact, his behavior and his treatment of his wife had become distinctly non-Christian!
Fortunately, someone called the Rev.’s attention to a course in Natural Hygiene that we were offering and both he and his wife enrolled. To this day, they say they don’t know why they enrolled, just that they must have been “led.”
This couple were both on drugs. In fact, they were swallowing pills “by the carload.” At this time, obviously, the only thing they had going for them was hope.
As they progressed in their learning, studying their lessons together, they began to make some simple changes. It wasn’t too long before they became private students and shortly thereafter the wife, and then the Rev., stopped taking their pills and adopted more Hygienic ways of eating and living. We will never forget how excited the Rev. was when he told us how “super” he felt on his daily breakfast of two bananas and 10 or 12 dates!
Well, to make a long story short, the Rev. now has his church back and his wife is now in an executive position with an important company. She confided to Dr. Elizabeth not too long ago that the Rev. is now more loving than ever. Two of their married chil- dren, after observing the transformation wrought in their parents, are now also “into” Natural Hygiene. Change can, indeed, be wonderful—and contagious!
== I Can! ==
Applied nutrition represents the “I CAN” philosophy of living, a subtle psychological approach, using the psyche positively, which gradually does away with the old erroneous and negative concepts and ideas which limit and constrain the thinking of most clients on first meeting and replaces them with a sense of being in tune with the positive.
Once our clients are fortified with knowledge and provided with a well-marked road to follow, one furnished the start by the practitioner, then, more often than not, they come to see a bright light beckoning to them at the end of the tunnel of darkness and fear which formerly surrounded them.
Through knowledge comes conviction and once a person becomes convinced in his mind of the Tightness of what you teach, more often than not, the doubter becomes the positive thinker. He verbalizes to himself, “Yes I CAN do it! I can bring about these changes! I CAN live in such a way that health MUST happen. This is a way of life. I CAN be, healthier than I now am. I CAN change. I REALLY CAN.
It is so important for clients to understand that, with you to guide them, they will be in charge of their own lives and no longer dependent upon a dispenser of pills nor will they, in their old age, require nurses to burp them and to change their diapers, so to speak. They begin to appreciate the immensity of the possible. They will no longer be required to take pills to elevate or to depress their vacillating moods because they un- derstand that when health replaces sickness, they will feel euphoric with a natural high. They will no longer have to have recourse to hormones to make them into what they should not be.
Instead, the possible is theirs for the doing, for the changing. Through learning the ways of life and understanding the rules of life, they can find their own way, they can take charge of Self.
Understanding the potential behind the I CAN! will often make performers out of the helpless ones who are so because their cells are sick. The mind and the body are one and when the mind contains positive thoughts—thoughts that are capable, ready-to-go thoughts—then these thoughts replace the emotions of fear, anxiety and worry so mira- cles can indeed happen!
Clients must be given to understand that when we have problems, physical or other- wise, we must find solutions. If we do not, we simply cheat ourselves. If our problem is one of sickness and we do not find a solution, we can cheat ourselves out of life!
We have said elsewhere that attitudes are contagious, both the attitude that we, as practitioners display to the world, and the attitude cultivated in or by our students. We have an outer and an inner attitude. If our inner attitude is a conviction that we CAN attain better health, we WILL because our attitude strengthens our subconscious power and this power pervades the entire body, generating power in our endocrine glands, in our heart, in our brain stem and servicing nerves, in all organs, including our organs of digestion.
This is important, vitally so, for remember all that we are is dependent upon nerve power and upon the efficiency of our digestive powers.
If you believe you can, you will act. This is one of the great, not-well-understood laws of life.
If your inner self is powered by fear, it will soon pervade your being, too. If you fear that health will continue to elude you, fear that life will soon depart from you, you will remain in the sickness rut and more and more pain and suffering will be your unhap- py lot simply because your inner fear-packed YOU will slowly, or rapidly, dissipate its power as it fears. Fear and worry are negative attitudes that steal away body power.
Far too many among us think and say, “if only.” If only, I had this or that, I could be rich. If only I could find the right doctor, I could be well!”
Charles M. Simmons reminded us that we need to change that attitude to “if I do this, I will get what I want” attitude. This is a positive attitude which means you have a plan of action and that you will work your plan. When the plan is sound and we go into action, we will fulfill our every dream.
That’s what the I CAN! concept is all about. The Hygienic practitioner who can get this philosophy across to his client and who gives him a workable plan to start him on his road to becoming a self-performer will be the successful practitioner. His clients will change from timid, doubtful, unhappy souls lacking power, souls filled with negative forces that are doomed to cheat and “to fail, into forward-looking, power-filled persons whose positive attitudes cannot help but bring to them the longed-for successful conclu- sion: the euphoria of superb health.
== Questions & Answers ==
'''You maintain that health is normal and that being sick is abnormal. How can this be? Doesn’t everyone have something wrong with him, even though it may be very minor?'''
You are correct when you say that I believe health to be our normal (natural) heritage. People become sick when they do not adequately answer the needs of their bodies, either through ignorance or because of other circumstances. Many people are sick today simply because they do not have knowledge of what these needs are. They simply follow the herd and do just as everybody else does. This is, of course, especially true when it comes to eating. We WANT to eat like everybody else, eats but the laws of life decree that eating that way is probably the most usual cause of disease. Therefore, if we desire health, we must eat foods to which we are biologi- cally best adapted.
'''Scientists and dietitians have proved by laboratory experiments that we all need a variety of different kinds of food. Why do you claim that this idea is all wrong and that fruits are a perfect food?'''
It was determined many years ago by a Yale researcher, by the name of Pot- tenger, that with cats, it takes three to four generations to prove the adequacy or inadequacy of a particular diet. I suspect that this is true with humans, also, and per- haps even many more generations since humans take far longer than cats do to mature. Laboratory research is more often than not unreliable when it comes to feeding humans. We are not static test tubes, we are nutritive process which is ongoing and extremely complicated. Furthermore, many feeding experiments are performed on test animals who are biologically quite different from humans. We cannot, as true scientists, make a direct correlation as to compared results with two biologically different beings. That is not scientific. We have far more reliable evidence and that is the evidence observed in certain tribes and peoples who have lived in a certain manner and eaten certain foods for thousands of years. The health of the Hunzas and of many others who live on a largely fruitarian diet is incontrovertible proof of the correctness of their diet. In contrast, we see the short, pain-filled lives of the vast majority of those who eat in ways contrary to human physiological and biolog- ical requirements. We can eat a variety of fruits, if need be. We can eat vegetables, fruits and nuts, if we crave variety. What we don’t need is food and ideas concocted in a laboratory setting. We are feeding MAN, not a test tube or some other animal.
'''Your I CAN! concept sounds like a good plan in theory, but how do you know if it will work?'''
We have seen it work! Even in our own lives. When Dr. Elizabeth was so ill and wracked by rheumatic pains, she felt trapped. At holiday times she would say to herself, “I must make this an especially happy occasion because I probably won’t be here next year!” This is negative thinking. This is the kind of thinking that de- stroys. She kept getting worse. It really wasn’t until we went to Europe and saw that people DID recover from many different kinds of illnesses when they learned what and how to eat that we and especially she, began to have the beginning of more positive thoughts. And when she first read Dr. Shelton’s book, “Orthotrophy,” Vol- ume II of The Hygienic System, it was like magic. She KNEW she could get better and from then on it was clear sailing. I don’t mean to imply that there were not healing crises. There were plenty of them, but she faced up to them and got over them because she continued doing what she knew was right to do! This is generally the case once people understand that nature not only revenges wrong doing but also rewards correct practices. Their whole attitude changes. They become filled with “Positivities!”
'''Does a person always have to change abruptly, immediately? I can see where this might be very difficult for some people.'''
No. A person does not always have to change abruptly. Of course nothing is to be gained by putting off making all the required changes and doing so immediately. Delay can sometimes make full recovery more difficult and prolonged. But, bear in mind that any change for the better is health-promoting, even though it be but minor. With certain timid souls, radical change is scary and with such people, we encourage them initially to take “baby steps.” As they succeed in conquering little goals, they can then move on to larger ones until, suddenly, they realize they have gone the distance, ran the mile, as it were. They have been successful. Then, usual- ly, there’s no stopping them!
== Article #1: The Great Awakener by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton ==
Understanding has been defined as “the power to make experience more intelligible by analyzing it in the light of valid and appropriate general concepts.”
The man who analyzes and understands may accept or reject on a basis of intelli- gence. He carefully considers and weighs all the facts and principles involved in a propo- sition and arrives at a decision.
Snap judgments and emotional acceptances or rejections do not grow out of a process of this kind. When we accept or reject a new idea or a new practice only because it disagrees or agrees or appears to disagree or agree with our prepossessions and pre- conceptions, we are guided, not by intelligence, but by prejudice and emotion.
Analysis is the sole guide for intelligent selection of alternative courses of action. If we lack sufficient data to make a full analysis, we do not accept or reject, but suspend judgment until more data can be obtained.
Mass media, so popular today, not alone with advertisers, but also with propagan- dists and pseudo-educators, make use of a form of hypnotic technique in their efforts to sway the popular mind.
By the constantly reiterated slogan, by frequent repetition of words and gestures, by holding the same image always before the minds of their intended victims, they seek to create a state of semi-somnambulism in which the poor victims of the mass media processes do exactly as they are told.
The people are said to be “conditioned” by such processes. Not merely the obvious, but also the hidden, persuaders are employed in this mass conditioning of the minds of the people.
Hitler’s use of the “big lie” was made effective by the same process. In advertising and in much of the propaganda of various groups in our culture, the same effective use of the “big lie” is seen. No better example of this can be offered than the constant stream of false medical propaganda that pours from the presses.
Among a people who have been conditioned to “think” in slogans and to follow the crowd in all things, truth has rough sledding. When a revolutionary new truth that seems likely to disturb the status quo is presented to the herd mind, the owner is likely to quote some popular slogan and swing off into the jitterbug line.
In our mass conditioned culture none of us are ourselves: We are faithful copies of what our masters want us to be.
Often arguing heatedly for or against this or that, we suffer a myopic inability to peer beneath the surface and discern the reality that lies below. We almost always miss tie fact that our acceptances and our rejections, as well as the receptors and rejectors, are all part of a very complex, persuasive cultural process.
It is disheartening to listen to the discussion of contemporary acceptances by the ro- bot minds that constitute the product of our overworked mass media. But the case is not as hopeless as it seems.
Truth has a way of awakening sleepwalkers and clearing the conditioned cobwebs from their minds.
No man armed with the truth is ever welcome in any culture. He is spat upon and discredited by the masters of the culture and their robot underlings, in proportion to the extent that he is feared. But he never fails to dehypnotize many of the victims of the mass-cultural process.
Today we witness the gratifying sight of many sleepwalkers awakening from their fever-dream as a result of coming in contact with Hygienic truth.
We must bring this truth to more and more of the sleepers, that they also may awak- en.
== Article #2: Overcoming Compulsive Habits by Stanley Bass, D.C. ==
Habits determine success or failure. I don’t care what you want to achieve in life, you can train yourself to be a success or you can train yourself to be a failure. If you allow yourself to swim in bad habits, you are going to be trapped. Walker, one of the great early Hygienists had the ability to inspire people to right living, as did other early Hy- gienists. It seems that since the early days of the 1920’s somehow the writers of Natural Hygiene took out the inspirational, the spiritual aspects of it. We were living in a sci- entific age and everyone wanted to be scientific and Hygienic doctors did not want to
be thought of as quacks or mystics or strange people so they left out the inspirational part, but I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that makes people change is inspiration. You can give them all the facts in the world and convince them in black and white that this is the right way but that doesn’t mean they will do it. The only way they will do it is if you get them emotionally excited.
Habits determine success or failure. If you are willing to go through these changes we have been talking about and get rid of the bad habits, reintroduce some new habits, you can do anything you want to do with your life. I don’t care what you have done. As I mentioned before, for 15 years I failed. I tried to fast to the finish. I fasted 10 days, 12 days, 14 days, 17 days and I would get caught with the wrong thought and I’d be pulled off. All my friends said to me, “Stanley, forget it; it can’t be done.” But I didn’t give up; I kept doing it until I succeeded. The only failure, mark one thing well, is if you try to do something 1,000 times and you fail, then you quit trying. You are not a failure until you stop trying, and if you stop trying you are going to be a failure for sure. If you keep try- ing, eventually you’re going to do it. So the only failure is the person who stops trying, not the one who tries 1,000 times and doesn’t do it. Remember that and don’t get dis- couraged. Every time you fall back, remember this is normal in learning any new habits. Don’t let it discourage you; keep going; never give up!
You shouldn’t condemn yourself for failure. Some people have a bad habit of saying, when they try something and they don’t succeed, “What a damn fool I am, what a louse.” They start criticizing themselves and they tell all their friends about how stupid they are. “I’m so stupid, how could I do this?” They want everyone to know about it and by the time they get through they have lost all their energy and they can’t do anything. They condemn themselves to the point that they lose all their drive. Don’t do it, don’t con- demn yourself. You’re divine. Everyone in this world is God-like but doesn’t know it. Let it come out. Don’t condemn yourself. Remember you can start all over again. Keep going.
Now, I must talk about procrastination. It’s the worst thing you can do. It’s the most vicious technique devised by the human brain since the beginning of time. That was my chief failing for a long time, so I am familiar with it and know all the tricks of it. What is procrastination? Procrastination is saying to yourself, “Oh, today is not a good day for me to do this; I’ll start tomorrow.” I’m a Natural Hygienist. When I opened up my institution a few summers ago in Woodridge, four out of five persons who checked in said, “I’m a Natural Hygienist.” Do you know what they are doing? Two of them were bugging me for meat and chicken. I saw them eating bread, cake and candy bars. When they left, we had to turn the mattresses over and found chewing gum wrappers and can- dy bar wrappers. They called themselves Natural Hygienists. What they mean by that is that they are procrastinators. They are telling themselves, “I ate well on Sunday. I’m really a Natural Hygienist, but today I’m under a lot of stress. It is not a good day for me, I’ll start tomorrow.” Then when tomorrow comes, “Oh! Gee I’ve got this problem. It’s not good, I’ll have to start next week. It will be easier. It’s snowing out, or I have to meet people.” You know the mind can rationalize anything. The mind is beautiful.
Hitler felt that he was a good man. Do you know that “Two-Gun” Crowley killed two policemen right before they sent him to the electric chair? He felt that he was a good man and a benefactor to humanity. You know people rationalize anything, even murder. If you can rationalize murder, if the greatest murderers that ever lived, the most famous ones felt that they were good human beings, what about a Natural Hygienist who is go- ing to start tomorrow? How easy it is for him to rationalize if “Two-Gun” Crowley could do it. The mind will, rationalize anything you want, but don’t play that game, because its too easy. I did that for 18 years.
What is procrastination? It’s telling yourself that you are going to start tomorrow; that you are really doing what you think you are doing, but for some reason it is inconve- nient. It’s lying to yourself and saying you are going to postpone something. You don’t
say you’re not going to do this, you say you’re going to postpone it. “I’m really this but I’ll start tomorrow.” So you see, you want to fool yourself.
I know a man who takes long fasts, lasting 30 days or more. After the fast he says, “Gee, I really purified my body so well.” Then he starts with foods that are borderline and says, “Well, with a 30-day fast, I must have cleaned out six months of wrong liv- ing.” Then he eats more and more garbage and before a few weeks go by he is eating the worst garbage in the world and he rationalizes that too. He says, “Well, I can eat meat and candy bars because the fasts will eliminate anything.” So he eats worse than the average person who is afraid to do that. He seesaws between fasting and bingeing. I know one man who has been doing it for 30 years. I did it for 18. I know how easy it is. So don’t play the game of procrastination. It is the most insidious of all. It’s a liar’s game. It’s a fool’s game, and it is a failing game. Face up to it. If you are going to do something, do it this second. There is no tomorrow; only the present is real; the past is a memory, the future a hope. Only this second is real. If you are not doing it now, you are playing a game with yourself.
The law of vital accommodation needs a balance wheel. You can poison yourself but there is no true adaptation to these poisons. Your body only tolerates them. I explained that. It’s stimulation first, then depression. All bad habits and addictions are expressed in stimulation and depression. You introduce poisons and you get “high.” Then the body throws you down into a state of recuperation which is interpreted by the brain as depres- sion, because the metabolism slows down to recuperate.
Why are bad habits hard to break? It’s because they are stimulating, and the more stimulating the habit, the harder is to break because the lower down you go in depression to recuperate. That’s ,all; that’s the secret of habits explained. If you study all the addicts around you, you will find this true. The worse the habit, the more poisonous it is, the more difficult it is to break because of the greater “down” you go through when you try to stop it. But if you know that stopping it puts you into the recuperation phase, and when you are feeling “down,” the body is trying to balance matters and rebuild to make you over again, and if you are willing to face it, you can give up any habit you desire. That is how I gave up tobacco. I took the depression “cure.” I stayed in bed and slept through all the downs until my energy was recharged.
You see, energy comes, not from the thing that makes you feel good—that stimulated you—you can get high on fruit. If you get up in the morning feeling pretty good, and you start eating fruit and you eat more sugar and then more sugar, this will stimulate you and you will get your high. If you overeat fruit it may make you nervous, even restless, and if you eat enough of it, you are going to go down, because you overstimulated your pan- creas, and your pancreas is burning up this deadly enemy of extra sugar and in so doing, it produces a temporary state of low blood sugar, which is interpreted as depression. The body intends for you to be depressed so you can recuperate. It can only do it by reducing your blood sugar to the point at it stops the excitation and allows you to recuperate. So you see, there is a rationale in all of nature. Whenever you go down, it is because you have to go down to become normal again. If you know that, and you don’t care—you’re not afraid of being “depressed”—you can break any habit and then some.
Now I want to bring up the secret of changing anything in a second. This took me 30 years to learn through trial and error and suffering. When I discovered it, I could do any- thing I wanted to at any moment. I could give up anything, any object or any possessive attachments of a person if I had to. This is a secret of learning to do without anything and changing anything.
The only suffering we can experience is due to the emotions. We experience suffer- ing due to emotions and feelings and this comes from identification, from locking into something. In other words, if you are watching a movie and you see this little child and the child falls down and gets hurt, you may cry. You are identifying with the child—you are becoming the child—you are experiencing the child’s problems so you are suffering. You’re crying. If your broker calls and tells you that your $30,000 in A.T.&T. stock has
collapsed and hit the skids and you are now worth $10.00, you either decide whether you want to continue living at that point, or try to get out of this somehow. You have just lost a fortune in the market, but then when you go to sleep there is no suffering. There is no stock market once you dream, and after your dream you go into a dreamless state of sleep and there is no suffering—there is no stockmarket—there are no more family problems—there are no problems—there is no more crime in the streets, there is nothing but peace. So you see, suffering is related to identification with and idea.
At the time I was studying Yoga, there was something in a book that triggered me off. The author said, “Nothing exists that thinking makes it so” or “I, think, therefore I am,” or “nothing exists but our thoughts.” In other words, it doesn’t mean that if you are unconscious that the world, has no reality, it means that for you, if you are not thinking, there’s no suffering for you. If you’re asleep, there’s no suffering for you because you’re not in a state of identification with the object which evokes an emotion. So I said to my- self, “If that’s the story, that’s why I failed.”
You see, everytime I tried to fast and I didn’t lose my appetite, I’d look at the food and I’d smell it and I’d think of how good it smelled and how good it would taste going down and then before I realized it, I would get emotionally worked up. My juices began flowing and then I couldn’t turn back anymore, I was finished. I had to eat and I’d wres- tle or fight with anyone who’d try to stop me. Since I never lost my appetite, I knew that I had to master myself mentally. The average person loses his appetite after a few days of fasting. So there is no struggle—no problem. I didn’t lose my appetite so I had to win the battle in the mental realm somewhere. I said, “It’s got to be done on the battleground of thought.”
At that time I had finished college and I was called to go into town on a job. I was part of a band in a place that had a smorgasbord. Every day they put the food in front of the band. People would march up and down for hours and eat. I was on a fast and I fasted for 38 days and I looked at the food and I said, “Ah ha, you’re the culprit, you trapped me before and you are not going to trap me again.” I looked at that food and refused to smell it, and I refused to see it. So, here I was, walking and playing, and the aromas were permeating my body, but I refused to acknowledge the existence of the food so there was no suffering. Even though I never lost my appetite and fasted for 38 days. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. There was no pain at all. There was the secret of learning how to do anything immediately.
That’s it. I wrote extensively on that in a book “Achieving Supreme Nutrition by Several Progressive Weekly Diets.” You have to go through everything. Determine your goal. Expect to practice. These are long term concepts but the immediate battleground is in the territory of thought. If you know that you are dealing with a thought and you decide who is going to be the boss, you can succeed. The secret is, when you get the desire or the temptation, at that moment you must not consider it at all, but simply move your mind to another subject. Transpose your thoughts at that point. You have got to move fast because it only takes a few second of emotions to get into the picture and the emotions are very strong. They are stronger than the intellect, and if you allow your- self to get emotionally involved, you can easily lose. So you must win the battle before that happens. You have a couple of seconds to win the battle, and if you understand how thought works, you will win every time. You’ll be in control.
== Article #3: The Negative Power of “If” by Charles M. Simmons ==
There are many proven laws that govern the human relations and personal management of one’s life. There are laws that govern negative effects as well as positive effects, but all of them are based on the actions of “cause and effect.” When certain conscious thoughts and subconscious attitudes cause a person to do certain things a certain way, the end result will always be the same. In fact, the result can be predicted, even before the action starts. This “cause and effect” action in human living is inevitable.
The presence of the word “if,” when applied negatively in your life, is an example of the power of such laws. When you say, “If I had certain abilities ...” or, “If I could be a certain kind of person ...” or, “If I could do what I want to ...,” you are telling the world that you have a daydream with no plan for making it a reality. You are automatically letting a negative law affect you. A dream with no plan for action means that nothing will happen. Nothing can happen because you block out action through the power of a negative attitude. “If,” when used this way, means “No,” “Never,” “Can’t.”
However, “If” can be changed from a black, gloomy word to a bright red-letter word by coupling it with the words, “I do.” This puts you under the influence of a positive law. When you say, “If I do certain things, I will get what I want,” you are expressing both a “dream” and a plan for making it come true.
Excerpt from Stop Cheating Yourself.
= Article #4: Excerpt from “In Tune With the Infinite” by Ralph Waldo =
Trine
It is the people who have come into realization of their own true selves who carry this power with them and who radiate it wherever they go—they have, as we say, found their center. And in all the great universe there is but one center—the Infinite Power that is working in and through all. The ones who then have found a center are the ones who have come into the realization of their oneness with the Infinite Power, the ones who recognize themselves as spiritual beings, for the Infinite is spirit.
Such is the person of power. Centered in the Infinite, you have thereby, so to speak, connected yourself with, you have attached your belts to, the great powerhouse of the universe. You are constantly drawing power to yourself from all sources. For, thus cen- tered, knowing yourself, conscious of your own power, the thoughts that go from your mind are thoughts of strength; and by virtue of the law that like attracts like, you by your thoughts are continually attracting to yourself from all quarters the aid of all whose thoughts are thoughts of strength, and in this way you are linking yourself with this order of thought in the universe.
And so to those that have, to those shall be given. This is simply the working of a natural law. Your strong, positive and hence constructive thought is continually work- ing success for you along all lines and continually bringing to you help from all direc- tions. The things that you see, that you create in the ideal, are through the agency of this strong constructive thought continually clothing themselves, taking form, manifesting themselves in the material. Silent, unseen forces are at work that eventually manifest in the visible.
Fear and all thought of failure never suggest themselves to you when you are such a person; or if they do, your mind expels them at once so you aren’t influenced by, and don’t attract to you, this type of thought from without; you’re in another current of thought. So, the weakening, failure-bringing thoughts of the fearing, vascillating or pessimistic about you have no influence on you. The one who is of the negative, fear- ing kind not only has his energies and his physical agents weakened or even paralyzed through the influence of this kind of thought that is born within him, but he also in this way connects himself with this order of thought in the world about him. And in the degree that he does this he becomes a victim to the weak, fearing, negative minds all around him. Instead of growing in power, he increases in weakness. He is in the same order of thought with those of, whom it is true, “and even that which they have shall be taken from them.” This again is simply the working of a natural law, the same as is its opposite. Fearing lest I lose even what I have I hide it away in a napkin. Very well. I must then pay the price of my “fearing lest I lose.”
Thoughts of strength both build strength from within and attract it from without. Thoughts of weakness actualize weakness from within and attract it from without. Courage begets strength, fear begets weakness. And so courage begets success, fear
begets failure. It is the man or the woman of faith, and hence of courage, who is the mas- ter of circumstances and who makes his or her power felt in the world. It is the man or the woman who lacks faith and who as a consequence is weakened and crippled by fears and forebodings who is the creature of all passing occurrences.
Within each one lies the cause of whatever comes to him. Each has it in his own hands to determine what comes. Everything in the visible, material world has its origin in the unseen, the spiritual, the thought world. This is the world of cause, the former is the world of effect. The nature of the effect is always in accordance with the nature of the cause. What one lives in his invisible thought world, he is continually actualizing in his visible material world. If he would have any conditions different in the latter, he must make the necessary change in the former. A clear realization of this great fact would bring success to thousands of men and women who all about us are now in the depths of despair. It would bring health, abounding health and strength to thousands now diseased and suffering. It would bring peace and joy to thousands now unhappy and ill at ease.
And oh, the thousands all about us who are continually living in the slavery of fear. The spirits within that should be strong and powerful, are rendered weak and impo- tent. Their energies are crippled, their efforts are paralyzed. Fear is everywhere—fear of want, fear of starvation, fear public opinion, fear of private opinion, fear that what we own today may not be ours tomorrow, fear of sickness, fear of death. Fear has become with millions a fixed habit. The thought is everywhere. The thought is thrown upon us from every direction ... To live in continual dread, continual cringing, continual fear of anything, be it loss of love, loss of money, loss of position or situation, is to take the readiest means to lose what we fear we shall.”
By fear nothing is to be gained but, on the contrary, everything is to be lost. “I know this is true,” says one, “but I am given to fear; it’s natural to me and I can’t help it.” Can’t help it! In saying this you indicate one great reason for your fear by showing that you do not even know yourself as yet. You must know yourself in order to know your powers, and not until you know them can you use them wisely and fully. Don’t say you can’t help it. If you think you can’t, the chances are that you can’t. If you think you can, and act in accordance with this thought, then not only are the chances that you can, but if you act fully in accordance with it, that you can and that you will is an absolute cer- tainty. It was Virgil who in describing the crew which in his mind would win the race, said of them, “They can because they think they can.” In other words, this very attitude of mind on their part will infuse a spiritual power into their bodies that will give them the strength and endurance which will enable them to win.
Then take the thought that you CAN—take it merely as a seed thought, if need be; plant it in your consciousness, tend it, cultivate it and it will gradually reach out and gather strength from all quarters. It will focus and make positive and active the spiritual force within you that is now scattered and of little avail. It will draw to itself force from without. It will draw to your aid, the influence of other minds of its own nature, minds that are fearless, strong, courageous. You will thus draw to yourself and connect your- self with this order of thought. If you are earnest and faithful, the time will soon come when all fear will loose its hold; and instead of being an embodiment of weakness and a creature of circumstances, you will find yourself a tower of strength and a master of circumstances.
== What Do You Mean By “Change In Lifestyle?” ==
89.1.1 False Ideas Restrain
89.1.2 Where Life Exists, Possibility Is
In the context of this lesson we will understand the concept of change in lifestyle to include those changes in both living and eating habits which are deemed by the practi- tioner as being essential for the restoration and maintenance of whatever level of health the present condition of the client will allow.
The client, guided by a knowledgeable practitioner, will be encouraged to leave the old ways that have failed him in the past and embark upon a new path, one designed es- pecially for him but one which is based upon the known laws of life, so that he can more fully realize his birth potential.
The client must be given to understand that he will be required to make some changes; that he will have to discard many of his former familiar, but false, beliefs and habits which cumulatively and progressively were responsible for his present unfortu- nate condition, whatever these may have been; that he will now be required to adopt more scientifically accurate, biologically appropriate (but, perhaps to him, somewhat strange) ways of eating and living.
It is important at the very beginning of a new relationship with a client to establish the fact that superb health is normal and that any deviation therefrom is totally and per- haps even inexcusably abnormal, being the result of certain errors in living and eating. He should be given to understand that some changes will necessarily have to be made abruptly and quickly; others perhaps less so, depending on what degree of health he wishes to achieve, and how fast.
The client must be brought to an understanding that superb health is a possible goal, but one that can be achieved only as certain changes are made to meet the structural and functional needs of the living body, sick or well, these being dictated solely by the nature of the human body, the way it is put together; by its ability to adapt slowly or rapidly, to change; and by the fact that the present condition of the client, whatever that may be, is the result of how well, or how poorly, these needs have been met during his lifetime.
The client must develop an understanding that superb health is a possible goal, one that he can achieve just as surely as hundreds of thousands of persons equally ill have done in the past and are presently doing, once they came to realize that they had to make certain biologically approved changes and then proceeded, always with careful guidan-
ce, to make them as and when required and as rapidly as individual circumstances war- ranted.
We must be able to convince our clients that we have either ourselves witnessed and/ or learned about people just like them, through our research, who left the old ways of eating and living, the old ways of sickness, fatigue and premature death, and embarked on a new adventure which required certain adjustments on their part, new ways of think- ing, definitive changes, some difficult to make but most actually quite easy and, in the doing, found to their great joy and personal satisfaction, that they had accomplished ex- actly what they had set out to do: they had attained their personal goal, they had even improved their health to an extent far beyond their earlier hopes.
Many began as physical wrecks and without hope but, before long, they had become eager participants in a manner of living and eating that they were now convinced, be- cause of their happy results, would bring them full recuperation and regeneration of body, mind and spirit. And, given sufficient time, they fulfilled their dream.
Those who intelligently recognized the need to make the necessary changes and then subsequently followed through in the doing, successfully overcame arthritis, depression, obesity, acne, breast tumors, asthma and a whole dictionary of affections, many deemed by the “authorities” as being “incurable.”
89.1.1 False Ideas Restrain
False ideas, old health-destroying habits, the disorders of life, drugs of all kinds, and all excess, these must all be cast aside in favor of new ways, new habits, new foods that encourage body building. Order and restraint must enter and become incorporated into the life plan, but there must come, also, a sense of adventure, of excitement, an aware- ness of one’s living body, a deep inner conviction that, as the ways of health replace the ways of disease, suffering and death, superb health will follow as naturally as the stars come out at night to glow and grace the darkened sky after the day has been spent.
89.1.2 Where Life Exists, Possibility Is
The professional practitioner must remember and convey to his most seriously-ill clients that where life exists, possibility is and will remain. This attitude must place the despair that so often pervades the mind and restrains progress. Tell your clients, in ad- vance, if need be, that it is possible to foretell or predict what an individual body is ca- pable of achieving when it is provided with the necessary wherewithal of life. Change in attitude may well be the most important change the more seriously-ill person needs to make. So many have had all hope taken away£ from them by one person or another or by one defeat after another, and the future looks dark. Just as the carpenter requires the tools of his trade to build a worthy structure, so must they receive the necessary nutrients of life to restore them to health and, thereafter, to maintain it in full capacity. It must be made clear to all clients that, in order to reach that longed-for goal of full health, change must become a part of their daily living, and not a once-in-a-while thing.
The changes of which we speak are, of course, by the very nature of the life process, all based singly and separately on the basic requisites of organic existence already delin- eated in this course. Each and every one, without exception, must be incorporated into the lifestyle of the sick and the well, as need and capacity so indicate. These requisites should be set forth by the practitioner in a pattern for performance that is deemed appro- priate for each client as his individual capacity to accept and utilize may warrant at the time, and adjusted as forward progress is made.
We must convey to the client that the body is a unitized whole and that we cannot neglect any single aspect of living unless we either completely destroy or limit the whole and that only as all the requisites of life, known and unknown, are incorporated into the
life script in amounts appropriate to each individual, depending upon his present state of health, will wellness of one cell and all cells together, the totality, be achieved.
== The Need To Inspire The Client ==
89.2.1 Establishing the Goals
89.2.2 Attitudes Are Contagious 89.2.3 Keeping on Target
89.2.4 Veras’s Story
89.2.1 Establishing the Goals
In order to obtain maximum cooperation and subsequent performance, to say nothing of reaping the rewards of correct eating and living on the part of the client, it will be necessary for the practitioner to convince the client that following the regimen that you recommend to him will benefit him in ways which are, to a certain extent, predictable well in advance and, to a certain extent, with a fair degree of accuracy.
Predictability is so because we humans are basically the same. We possess gross de- tails that are quite similar, it is only in the minor ones that we differ. Therefore, when we behave in a manner contrary to our fundamental needs, we can predict with surety that the health of the totality will diminish and in an exactly equal amount. But, the opposite is true, also for when we answer our body’s fundamental needs, and do so in all respects, the body responds by discarding the old in favor of the new; in other words, like the con- tractor called to make repairs on a dilapidated building who must first tear down before he can rebuild with new and better materials so, too, must sick persons discard, before they can rebuild!
89.2.2 Attitudes Are Contagious
Attitudes are contagious, so it is important for the practitioner to present the possible benefits which can accrue to the client in an enthusiastic and convincing manner. In other words, as practitioners we should avoid the “pie in the sky” approach in favor of more reasonable immediate goals, ones attainable, in most instances, fairly easily and within a comparatively short time.
These goals can range from the physical (the elimination of certain rather minor digestive troubles, for example), the cosmetic (losing that look of utter fatigue that so many of our clients wear on their first visit), and even economic (no longer required to buy this or that drug or prosthetic gadget).
The list of possible benefits, of course, could be extensive, but several, comparative- ly easily attainable, immediate goals can and should be established initially and, then, others advanced from time to time as the need for further encouragement may arise.
89.2.3 Keeping on Target
Sometimes clients require being reminded of where they have been, where they are now, and where they are going; kept on target, as it were. Presenting the little goals, the “baby steps” we so often talk about, can usually convey to the client sufficient inspira- tion to keep him following the straight path to complete freedom from disease and suf- fering.
The client should be told that you, the teacher, will provide him with the necessary training to enable him eventually to “go it alone,” and this, too, in a relatively short pe- riod of time; that he will be able to overcome whatever problem is troubling him on his own without having recourse to his former “run-to-the-doctor syndrome.”
It will be necessary from time to time to discuss with the client the importance of his becoming so knowledgeable about the science of life (Natural Hygiene) that he will
feel confident to “go it alone,” to take charge of his own Self. This concept, of course, should be discussed preferably before he experiences his first healing crisis, or else he may become completely confused or even disillusioned.
89.2.4 Veras’s Story
The case of Vera illustrates this last point beautifully. Vera, a woman in her early 50s, was suffering from a very bad bronchial disorder which had troubled her for well over 15 years. In addition to the lung involvement, she experienced angina “attacks” from time to time. The doctor had told her she had a severely weakened heart muscle and must be careful not to “overdo.”
Vera’s medications consisted of nitroglycerine tablets, antibiotics, steroids from time to time (prednisone), and digoxin, all of which she took from time to time as directed by the family physician. Additionally, on her own, she took a multitude of vitamins and had done so for years. In spite of all her “treatments” and the various medications, prescrip- tion and nonprescription, her energy level remained dangerously low and her ankles and legs remained swollen with edema. Vera was a very discouraged woman.
Vera had been referred to us by a pastoral counselor in whom she had much con- fidence and, since she was already seemingly convinced that the medical “treatments” offered had failed her in the past and were certainly not helping her now, she had agreed to “try” Natural Hygiene.
At our initial meeting, we reviewed Vera’s eating diary which, as suggested, she had kept for the previous two weeks. It was obvious, of course, that most of this client’s trou- bles were the result of a lifetime of incorrect feeding habits, and that a primary need was to detoxify her body.
However, we learned that her husband, Joe, was suffering from severe mental de- pression, caused no doubt from worry about his wife’s condition. He had been forced to take a temporary leave of absence from his work. Under the circumstances, Vera felt that it would be inadvisable for her to go to a fasting retreat at this time.
Therefore, it was necessary to move in another direction. Accordingly, we explained to our client that we had no doubts that she could improve her health status and to a con- siderable extent by making some, at first rather simple, changes, these to be followed at a future time by other changes, as warranted from time to time. We sensed that Ve- ra did not feel inclined to make any radical changes for fear of upsetting her already concerned husband and driving him, perhaps, into an even deeper depression. We em- phasized, however, that doing it this way, making small changes slowly, would require considerably more time than it would if fasting had been the program of choice. Vera agreed that this was the way she must take. She would see what the future would bring.
We introduced our client to the seven stages in the biological evolution of pathology. She immediately saw the sequence of events as they had transpired in her own and in her husband’s lives. She recounted for us some of her own past symptoms and history and we discussed how they seemed to suggest this or that stage. She enthusiastically grasped the concept that it was possible for her to retrace the various stages in this biological evolution and that, in so doing, her energy and general health would gradually improve.
In passing, we commented that, during the retracement, it is often possible for certain persons to relive the past; that is, they may be called upon to experience some of their earlier symptoms as hidden pockets of poison are flushed out of their hiding places from time to time. Vera indicated that she understood this possibility and thought this might reasonably be expected.
However, apparently we failed to make a deep enough impression on Vera at this ini- tial presentation and the subject did not immediately come up again. Things went along exceptionally well for some time. Vera was able consistently to reduce her drug intake, the nitroglycerine being completely set aside and the antibiotics, also. No steroids were
now used and the digoxin was considerably reduced. As for the vitamins, they became a thing of memory only.
The coughing up of mucus became less troublesome, her vitality level grew enabling her to participate in the activities of her beloved church, the digestive upsets that had plagued her for many years were all but forgotten and, all in all, both Vera and we were well pleased with ourselves.
Then it happened! A violent attack of coughing. Mucus poured out of Vera’s throat gagging and choking her. She gasped for breath. She panicked. Dr. Ralph Cinque, in a lecture on June 27, 1979, reminded us that “The asthmatic often becomes terrified be- cause of his wheezing and gasping for breath, sometimes feeling as though his life is at stake which naturally alarms anyone concerned. However, only occasionally is a per- son’s respiratory obstruction so great that this is the case. Most of the time the attack is not nearly so bad as the victim might think.” [From Overcoming Asthma by Beth Snod- grass. Available from Life Science.]
We had not prewarned Vera of this possibility. So, the “run-to-the-doctor syndrome” grasped ahold of Vera’s mind and, almost instinctively, like a well-trained animal obeys its master, Vera trotted off to the very doctor who had failed her for over fifteen years!
She was immediately placed in the hospital where she was given a variety of tests, including X rays and scans, and plied with all manner of drugs.
The cough went away and the mucus dried up, just as they had throughout the years past. The drugs accomplished their purpose: the nerves were narcotized, the symptoms suppressed. Vera remained in the hospital for nine days and then returned home, weak and spent. The “attack” had cost her well over $11,000!
Some time later, a wan and weary Vera presented herself in our office once again. She recounted her story, exclaiming at the end, “What a fool I was!” She had finally re- membered our telling her about what might occur as she retraced the former stages in the evolution of pathology on her journey back to health. She stated the events and the con- firmation of knowledge simply. The conviction of truth was reflected both in her manner and in her eyes as she exclaimed, “I was just having a healing crisis, wasn’t I?
Vera, you see, had not failed. We, her practitioners, had failed. We had failed to ex- plain in simple terms BEFORE THE EVENT, and often from time to time as a reminder of what might possibly happen as retracement begins and accelerates.
There were other healing crises to follow, but now Vera was able to take them each in stride because she now fully understood the nature of a healing crisis and what, except in very exceptional circumstances, she could do on her own to remedy the situation. She understood now that her body was always in a state of flux, of change, and was so more now than ever before; that when a healing crisis came, she should keep warm and just stand aside and let the wisdom resident within her own body take charge and get on with the healing of hurting cells while she watched and waited and rested, confident in the final outcome.
We saw Vera not too long ago. She is still too thin but both she and Joe are on a clear path, a Hygiene path, that will lead them together to a life of great joy and boundless energy for living and extended and purposeful life. Vera and Joe are now “going it on their own.” It has been some years now since Vera made her last trip to any doctor’s of- fice and she is confident now that she will never have to enter another hospital, unless compelled to do so by some unforeseen accidental injury that may require perhaps the services of an orthopedic surgeon. Changes were required in Vera’s lifestyle and she has successfully made all adjustments in philosophy and in practice. We are certain now that Vera will not panic again.
== The Practitioner Presents The Plan ==
Clients must be convinced that the practitioner in charge is designing a program specif- ically tailored to meet their precise needs, one that will enable them to assume full re-
sponsibility for their own care and well-being, thus removing them from all necessity to depend any longer on the medical establishment for pills and potions that serve only to poison.
The capable practitioner must teach clients Natural Hygiene’s rules of life and con- vince them that, by following the simple Hygienic ways of eating and living, they will gradually find their own aches and pains either considerably diminished or even no longer existent; that their impaired and troubled digestive and other afflictions will soon become but a memory. They must come to an understanding, by presentation of or the experiencing of evidential results, that it is possible for them to see their own energy levels soar to heights perhaps unknown since earliest childhood; that they may even ex- perience once again the joy of sleeping undisturbed the whole night through and being able to awaken at dawn with vigor renewed, ready to meet the challenges and problems of each new day. But, for all this to happen, change is not only suggested, but mandato- ry.
== The Client Must Be In Charge ==
89.4.1 Millie’s Story
Clients must be responsible for making all changes. It must and should be made clear to them that they will be in charge of their own lives and that they will thus be designing their own future. Before they sought relief, but they gained no health. Now, they must make changes because they have a new goal, the attainment of a higher level of health. They must be brought to an understanding of the most important reality of life: that they can FREE THEMSELVES of all their sick cares and concerns as well as from the finan- cial burden that being sick imposed upon them, a burden which kept them from enjoying many of the simpler pleasures of life; and that all this wonderful new world can be theirs by making some simple changes in their manner of eating and living, changes which have proved in the past throughout all of history to be health-building, changes which will replace their former health-destroying habits, changes which will soon bring them an abundantly rich life instead of their present half-life of sickness and suffering, one filled with the spectre of premature death.
As a specialist in Life Science, this is what you have to offer and what they have to gain: a life without pain and complete freedom from all sickness and disease. But, they must be made to understand that the new trip is not free, that no one can accomplish these promised and highly fortuitous results FOR them, that they must do it ALL ON THEIR OWN and that many changes may be required of them.
Furthermore, just as walking the sickness road can be a very lonely walk, indeed, just so, travelling the road to health must necessarily often cause one to desert the herd and be somewhat lonely, too. But, and this is what must be emphasized, WITH A HAP- PY DIFFERENCE!
The sickness road is one filled with pain and suffering. It is a downward trek that” leads to more involved pathology and eventually, more often than not, to a life filled with untold agony and unpredictable pathologies. In contrast, the Hygienic life script unfolds like a happy drama and opens up a joy-filled road where there is no pain, no suffering. It is an upward path that can expand the mind, ripen the senses, open new doors, impart an expanded spiritual awareness of the meaning of life, and often provide an opportunity to help others to know the joys of living the Hygienic way. In other words, by proving himself amenable to change by the doing, the client can find a new purpose for living and, as always, with purpose comes performance and with performance in the arena of life, as contrasted with the lonely life of pain, all loneliness leaves, never to return.
Lastly, our clients must also comprehend that it has taken time and many mistakes, both known and unknown, to change the potential they possessed at birth to whatever state of diminished health they are presently experiencing, and that it will also take time
to achieve whatever level of health is now possible considering the client’s age, his pre- sent condition, his residual vitality and how well he follows the Hygienic road, and that sometimes the amount of time required will be more than we either like or anticipate.
However, clients should be assured, and this from time to time, that with each im- provement, the speed of recovery will begin to accelerate, the healing crises will become less frequent and less severe, until finally they are no more. The ultimate goal will then have been reached and the, improved health level thereafter need only be maintained. The changes will, at that point, no longer be necessary, because they have become a part of one’s natural life plan.
89.4.1 Millie’s Story
Millie learned all of the foregoing the hard way. She came to us originally with a severely-impacted colon, diagnosed as a spastic colon. It had been years since she had had a normal movement. Enemas and cathartics, headaches and extreme lassitude were all a way of life with Millie.
She hated her life. She hated the constant fatigue that prevented her from doing so many of the things she wanted to do. A divorcee, she said that the constant enema-taking and the fatigue kept her from having any fun! She was only 42 years of age.
We explained to Millie that the enemas and the cathartics were her “crutches” and that, so long as she continued to use her crutches, she would never be able to “go it alone.” She would always, forever after, require her crutches. The pills and potions were not removing the cause(s) of her trouble and, indeed, only served to add to them. These substances were all chemical poisons and, by using them, she was simply adding more poison to all the poisons resident within her own body. It was this poison that had caused and was continuing to cause her problems. Adding poison to poison would only serve further to kill more cells and to reduce even more the tone of the muscles of her diges- tive tract. If she continued their use, she might well never again be able to have a normal bowel movement. We told her that it would be necessary for her to make some changes in her manner of eating and living, that she must now, as one of our students from Ken- tucky recently remarked, “make getting the finest food her most important priority.”
Like so many others, some successful, some not, Millie agreed to “try” Natural Hy- giene. We explained why she should restrict her diet choices to the finest of natural raw foods, why she should now begin a regular and vigorous exercise program, why she should increase her rest and sleep periods, why she must now drink distilled water and when. In fact, we laid out a precise program for our client to follow, a step-by-step plan of action.
Millie took over and did extremely well. She followed the regimen laid out for her, making few mistakes. As a matter of fact, Millie became so imbued with enthusiasm about her program and her progress that she began to preach Natural Hygiene to all and sundry who would listen.
As her reward, within three months, Millie was having a natural bowel movement (bm) two and three times a week! This was like a miracle to her. After a year, all the digestive disorders of the past had practically disappeared; the heaviness, the excess gas, the occasional nausea and belching, these were no longer any concern. Millie was once again going here and there, having the “good time” she had so yearned for. Rarely now did she have to have recourse to an enema.
At the end of the second year, the bms were coming almost every day. Once in a great while, but only rarely, Millie would have one of her former trying headaches. But, she wasn’t satisfied, she wanted it all and NOW! She felt she needed two or more bms every single day and felt annoyed when such did not happen. She wanted to be rid of her headaches once and for all and forever. She wanted someone to wave the magic wand!
Without consulting us, Millie went to another practitioner, not a Hygienist, and en- rolled in a “course of treatments” which were to take away all her cares in one magic
moment. The cost of this series of muscle and bone adjustments, as we learned later, was $1,500.00!
Well, a short time ago, Millie came back. The practitioner, at her request, provided us with his assessment of her progress. To Millie’s chagrin and astonishment, the erst- while waver of the magic wand was not $1,500.00 richer but, sadly, “disappointed” in Millie’s “lack of progress.” The “treatments” had failed.
We reminded a rather chastened Millie once again that there is no magic wand, that healing takes time; that not we, but our bodies are in charge. It is our inner wisdom, not we, that must be in control. We humans make too many mistakes when left on our own to be in charge of such responsibility. Our inner wisdom is so designed that it does not make mistakes and cannot just be diverted from its tasks by our whims and wishes. Just so long as we cooperate with that inner wisdom by supplying the correct tools, as and when required and in the proper amounts, meaningful progress will be made. Health will happen. Unhealthful ways of living always demand a toll of disease but abundant health follows in the wake of correct practices.
On its own, our inner wisdom will establish the necessary priorities, determine how these may best be addressed, lay out the plan, the ways and means, with exact directions and specifications; and then address each in its own manner and at the appropriate time. We are required only to provide the tools, then step aside and watch the magic within unfold.
Millie sat quietly, deep in thought as we quietly reminded her of this wisdom of the ages. She didn’t have much to say, but we knew that Millie had learned a valuable les- son. Millie will wait now for time to bring its miracle.
Encouraging words help clients when the way gets tough. Knowledge and under- standing can inspire the necessary changes both in practice and thinking. Clients must grasp the concept that health is, for them, indeed, a possible goal; that Natural Hygiene (Life Science) provides the ways and means of achieving superb health. We need to im- part to our clients the confidence that you, as a practitioner, will teach the client how to live according to the laws of life and how to provide the tools for always living in health.
If we can cause our clients to believe that they can be in complete charge of their own lives and that they can work this miracle, then we will be instrumental in bringing about the required changes. And, then, too if we can bring to them full understanding of the fact that their former dependence on the medical community was not only totally nonproductive, but actually destructive of life, then we are to be commended for that is the first important change.
A client must realize, and deeply, that it will take time to accomplish the healing and to restore whatever level of health s/he is presently capable of achieving and that the re- sults will depend on how well s/he follows directions. All diseased persons differ only in the degree of involvement and the site. All can respond favorably to health-building ways, but they must not wait beyond the physiological point of no return. In other words, there is a limit beyond which full recovery is impossible. This, too, is a change in think- ing because, for so long, they have depended on that “magic” pill or, if that fails, upon some fantastic operation that they believe will remedy the hurt.
== What Kinds Of Changes Are Required ==
The kinds of changes which must be identified for the client will, of course, vary from individual to individual but, surprisingly, they almost always fall into the following cat- egories:
# Doingawaywithcertainoutmodedbeliefsandsuperstitionsthatcanonlyservetoham- per maintenance of full health or perhaps even to destroy it, if it is now present.
# Causingachangeinattitudethroughknowledgeaboutthekindsofhabitsandpractices in eating and lifestyle that are recognized as being destructive to health.
# Developingadeepconvictionabouttheneedforthechangesrecommendedbytheprac- titioner, this obtained through knowledge of what is believed to be essential to health maintenance.
# Theintroductionofpositiveactionthroughpractice,graduallyorabruptly,asindividual situations and conditions warrant, eliminating all destructive habits and replacing them with Hygienic, truly scientific, practices known to be instrumental in building health, not disease.
== Outmoded Beliefs And Superstitions ==
89.6.1 Mike’s Story
89.6.2 Other Superstitions 89.6.3 The Case of Rev. Kim
Most people today are mere puppets dangling at the end of strings, skillfully manip- ulated by self-serving corporate interests.
For example, there are few Americans today who are not complete and willing serfs to the medico-drug-insurance complex. As we look around at our own friends, relatives and neighbors, we find that every one, almost without exception, goes regularly to a physician for a check-up, even though many physicians openly acknowledge that this is worthless. We recall years ago reading an article in the Long Beach newspaper, an arti- cle written by various physicians, which said, in effect, that such trips were a waste of money and meaningless, that nobody was perfect and that they were simply a means to an end, getting people to come on a regular basis to the physician of choice; and it did help to pay the rent!
Most people we know dutifully swallow their prescribed pills, submit to X rays at the slightest suggestion of “their” doctor, would never fail to keep their medical lifeline (their insurance policies) up to date, and grasp at the medical man every time they have the slightest ache or pain. Each one seems to be content with his “allergies” and his pills, having full confidence that somehow, in some way, “the doctors will find a ‘cure’ for whatever happens to ail him and the rest of suffering humankind.”
Just last week a friend sat in our family room and told how he had gladly and will- ingly volunteered himself as a guinea-pig for a mass experiment to test certain drugs proposed as a possible “cure” for diabetes. The group sponsoring this mass experiment with other people’s lives had apparently just received a multi-million dollar grant.
We gasped in horror at his news. There he sat at least 50 pounds overweight, highly flushed of face, wheezing and coughing as he talked—a prime candidate for a stroke, the mark of the needle plainly visible on his forearm. We inquired as to the nature of the injected drug. He didn’t know, other than that it was some NEW drug that “they” hoped would soon prove its merit.
We asked our friend, “Why?” Why had he let himself be injected by any chemical, to say nothing of permitting an unknown and untried substance, about which he knew noth- ing, to be introduced into his bloodstream? Did he not realize that introducing any for- eign substance into the blood could, almost instantaneously, lead to anaphylactic shock, with instant death a distinct possibility? Our friend nodded his head. He agreed that Yes, all that could happen but, “You see,” he thoughtfully went on to say, “Unless all of us help these doctors, they never will find the cures for all these diseases.” Like a puppet on a string he had responded to the siren call of “Cure!”
Hygienists know that all this is pure hum-bug, anti-health and anti-scientific non- sense. They also know that this trust in the medical community and in their drugs dies hard. In the back of the head of almost every new client who comes to you for help will remain the thought that if THIS (meaning you) fails, he can always hurry back to the known and familiar ways of medicine.
Thus, the Hygienist must point his client in a new direction. He must prove that all drugs are anti-health. He must remind his clients, when the issue arises, as it will, that the medical community has had over 30 centuries to prove that drugs and their methods are instrumental in curing disease and that, in every instance, they have failed. Drugs and surgery cure nothing.
Clients must change their minds and, accordingly, their practices in this respect. All drugs are anti-health and so acknowledged by the very persons who prescribe them. They are known to damage the nervous structure and actually to destroy cells. Drugs suppress symptoms, but remove no cause. Clients must further understand that surgery removes an effect, but not the cause and unless, and until, the cause or causes are re- moved, the effect, the disease, will not only remain, even though temporarily abated, but will worsen. This, too, is an important change in thinking that every client must make before he can expect to improve his health.
It is true that most of the people who seek the help of a Life Scientist will be some- what, if not totally, disillusioned about the effectiveness of medicines, at least in their case, even before they seek our help.
But, we should be aware of the fact that most of them know nothing whatsoever, or perhaps only a very little, about natural ways of healing. What you suggest to them is all foreign territory, a vast unknown, and like pioneers setting out for a new land, they have hope, but little else, because they presently lack knowledge.
It is the practitioner’s job, if s/he, can, to drive the nail into the coffin, to bury all faith in medicines and surgery as the way to health. We must get across to our clients the relationship between cause and effect. Our clients must be brought by us into an un- derstanding of the scientific sense of removing cause before they can reasonably expect once again to know health. They must be convinced by your attitude and by how you look and by what you say that YOU, the Hygienic practitioner, possess knowledge of what they must do to accomplish their objective.
Another false belief that grasps the American mind like the tentacles of an octopus holds fast to a tasty morsel is the need for enormous amounts of protein, this belief, of course, having been promoted now for almost a century, as Life Scientist well know, by the meat and dairy and other self-serving interests, particularly and knowingly or un- knowingly, by the recipients of large research grants indebted to corporate interests for their research monies.
“But, where do you get your protein?” becomes the plaintive cry of almost every new client when first faced by their new diets, so brainwashed have they been in this regard. One of our students in Sweden recently wrote us that “every adult male needs 250 grams of protein every day!” Where had he gotten this piece of information? Well, he had read it somewhere, he told us!
If a client has this or some similar idea etched in his mind, he must be depro- grammed. One can accomplish the required deprogramming only by substituting knowl- edge, an understanding of the scientific fact, for example, that the primary need of the human body is NOT for protein, but for single molecule carbohydrates, the kind abun- dantly supplied in fresh raw fruits. He must be instructed in the ways of catalysis and how the body recycles its discarded protein; about how the body, in fact, can change one kind of protein into another kind of protein as may be required for metabolic purposes; (that the body cannot and does not use protein, only amino acids, and that these are con- tained in fresh fruits which, when eaten, save the person who eats fruits all the energy wasted in processing concentrated protein and complex carbohydrates, energy which can then be diverted to more constructive tasks. Unless true Hygienic knowledge becomes incorporated into the client’s subconscious, unless full perception on his part becomes a reality, all the doubt—the uneasiness which so limits progress—will remain.
Thousands of people, indeed millions, believe that herbs will restore a sick person to health. Health food stores stock their shelves with a wide variety of herbs. In fact, herb sales represent a major part of their income. Clients will surely ask you about this herb
and that herb and why you do not recommend herbs? Or vitamins? Or brewer’s yeast? Or a host of other magic substances. As a student of Life Science, of Natural Hygiene, you have learned about all these things, or will learn about them. This information has all been carefully documented and planned for your enrichment, to arm you well so that you will be enabled to meet the needs of clients for new knowledge to replace the old beliefs and superstitions. Without confidence in your knowledge and in the program pro- posed to a client by you, that client will make only limited progress, if any.
The horror of fasting is a prime example of beliefs that die hard. The average person, particularly here in America, the land of Surfeit Plus, is firmly convinced that missing a, single meal will cause him extreme anguish. School children MUST be “fortified with a good breakfast!” This is gospel truth, not open to debate. Fasting is what starving people do! He knows from watching the boob tube what starving can do to a person. You can’t talk him into going without food!
Clients, therefore, must be given understanding of what the difference between fast- ing and starving is. Your new client will not understand that fasting, even for a short time, will allow the body to achieve a higher level of health and that prolonged fasting may well be the single most important way to be restored to a level of health such as s/ he has not been privileged to know in an entire lifetime.
Clients must be disabused of their antipathy, even horror, of fasting, and this can only be accomplished when one imparts to the client the known facts about fasting, that it is a biologically well-accepted modality which provides the physiological rest required for healing to happen and to happen with the fastest possible speed.
89.6.1 Mike’s Story
Mike’s story illustrates just how difficult it can be sometimes to remove from the subconscious mind this fear of fasting. Mike, age 56, has had rheumatoid arthritis for some 15 years. He had been referred to us by a former client. We were told that he would be unable to come to our office because he could not negotiate steps and also, because of his condition, if he did come, he would have to stand during the entire consultation. We agreed, therefore, to make a house call.
We were deeply moved at our first meeting with Mike. There he stood, emaciated, tall, and straight as an arrow, propped up on crutches, his face wreathed in smiles. You see, he had been given hope by his friend.
We immediately know that Mike was in the advanced, final stages of rheumatoid arthritis. He had to be suffering great pain. His fingers were twisted and curved. He could barely move his head, one are was completely motionless. With his one moveable arm, Mike gestured for us to be seated and then he swung over to his chair, one espe- cially designed for arthritics. It lowered him slowly and gently to a sitting position. The smile remained fixed on Mike’s face.
We knew that the only help for this man lay in fasting but Mike knew nothing of Life Science. His housekeeper, herself terribly obese and obviously diseased, provided him for breakfast boxed cereals and milk, sometimes followed by two eggs. Occasionally, he told us, he also had a glass of canned orange juice and always several cups of coffee. Luncheon was a sandwich, usually made of white bread spread with either canned tu- na and mayonnaise or with peanut butter and jelly. At this meal he also had coffee. His evening meal was provided by “Meals for Millions” and consisted of some combination of the four basic groups. At this meal, he drank either milk or coffee.
Mike lived alone except for his housekeeper. He was a veteran living on his veteran’s pension. The housekeeper worked for room and board. She did the shopping, kept the premises reasonably clean and prepared two meals. It was obvious that Mike could not afford to go to a fasting institution, if he had been able to get there in his condition. After discussing the matter with him, it was obvious, too, that he wouldn’t have gone if he had been the wealthiest man in the world! Fasting, to Mike, was for those persons abandoned
on a raft somewhere in mid-ocean, or for primitives living in some remote corner of far off India or Africa, certainly not for him.
Obviously, here was a crying need for change, so how did we accomplish it? We took baby steps, making small changes count. The first important change we suggested to Mike was to forego his usual breakfast in favor of a fruit breakfast. He agreed that he could do this. Then, we suggested that he reduce his coffee intake. Mike was quite enthusiastic about our suggested changes.
We remained with Mike about an hour and then left, promising to return in two weeks. We left him with the first lesson in our Applied Nutrition Course, the one that recounts the stages in the evolution of pathology. We felt this was probably a good way to begin Mike’s deprogramming and to establish in his mind the concept of change as it might apply to him, the idea that he might be able to retrace his own life script and some day return to health.
Before the two weeks were up, Mike was on the telephone. He had a special tele- phone hook-up which enabled him to talk into a speaker and thus did not have to hold a telephone. Otherwise he would have had no way to communicate with the outside world. He complained of extreme weakness and said that he had felt it necessary to resume hav- ing his two eggs for breakfast, eating them after he finished his fruit.
We felt it was time to go back for another visit. This time we went armed with Lesson Two which explains, in simple terms, some basic information about carbohydrates, fats and proteins. We reviewed again with Mike the biological evolution of pathology and he said he understood about where he was presently in the evolution, that he had some real tough sledding ahead but he was confident he could make it. We felt that Mike had pro- gressed extremely well. He had changed from a man filled with doubts into a possibility thinker; one filled, indeed, with “Positivities.” Now, he was to acquire even more knowl- edge to fortify his conviction that change was possible. Old ideas and superstitions seem to fade and eventually disappear when replaced by knowledge and truth!
Within four months, Mike was eating two fruit meals a day, no longer ate his eggs every morning and was down to a single cup of coffee per meal. Of course, lacking his former stimulants, he became extremely weak, resting all day for the most part in his elevated bed. His bed was raised just high enough to permit Mike to slide out. You see, he cannot bend his legs, the knee joints have long since been removed surgically.
The housekeeper left to be replaced by a university student from mainland China, a fine young man who sets out sufficient fruit for two meals. He keeps the premises spot- less. However, his school schedule leaves Mike alone all day.
By, this time, Mike had also eliminated all his vitamins, the steroids, and reduced his aspirin intake (or Tylenol) to 10 per day. Sometimes he had to grit his teeth to bear the pain, hut he did it. There was no need to suggest hot baths to relieve his agony. He was unable to get down into a tub. Then, Mike made a major decision. He was going to fast for one day. This was a banner day. We felt like firing the cannon and running up the flag of victory. Our man was to be wonderfully surprised. On his fast day, Mike found, to his amazement, that he had very little pain! However he felt dizzy and even weaker, a rather scary experience for someone who had to remain all day in bed and alone.
Several weeks ago, we went on our monthly visit to Mike. As usual, he was in bed and, also as usual, smiling. He recounted for us how well he was doing. He was able now to walk 15 times every day back and forth down the long hall to the living room. He could now move his head more and, perhaps most wonderful of all, he had so much more energy than just a few weeks ago. Mike announced that he had decided to take still another step forward. He would now have his two fruit meals per day and, for his evening meal, a salad plus a baked potato and avocado! Mike would no longer now be dependent on “Meals for Millions,” certainly a most worthy and commendable ef- fort but one, unfortunately, which knows nothing about Natural Hygiene. Mike said he was convinced now that the principles of Natural Hygiene were correct principles which
had already proved their worth to him. We encouraged him to go forward, that now his progress would accelerate. Mike’s eyes shone!
Just a few days ago, Mike telephoned. He had made up his mind. On his own, he was planning to fast—this time for 36 hours. He said he felt wonderful and had reduced the pain pills down now to only four pills a day. Mike wants it all now. He has discard- ed the old ideas, the old superstitions. He is well on the road to better health. He is still studying about Natural Hygiene, the study lessons propped up before him. Knowledge, even though imparted slowly, has wrought the miracle of change in Mike. It has brought conviction. He now knows that there is only one possible way to improve one’s health and that is by living healthfully.
89.6.2 Other Superstitions
Another superstition that is really hard to remove from the minds of clients is that in our meal planning, we have to adhere to the four basic food groups. My how some clients will argue about this totally erroneous concept. With such clients, it is well to be fortified with some good solid knowledge about how the human digestive system works. We always have ready a quart bottle, some vinegar and some baking soda. We put some water in the bottle and then add a little vinegar followed by a teaspoonful or so of the baking soda and Voila! It fizzes! Most of our clients have experienced this fizzing in their own stomachs often enough to see the connection. They receive a study lesson on the digestive system and they soon become disenchanted with the four basic groups con- cept, convinced that their own digestive disaster scene has been caused by incorrect food combinations. Understanding the digestive scene makes the idea of simple meals more understandable to them because, perhaps for the first time in their lives, they compre- hend that the digestive process is a chemical, mechanical and electrical, very involved, process and that the more we add to the confusion by eating heterogeneous masses of foods, the less real nutrition will result. Why pay out all that money for food that never reaches the REAL you, the world of the cells!
Understanding how the digestive organs work, at least understanding this in gross terms, disabuses most clients of the idea that they can eat anything and everything, as and when they feel like eating, and still enjoy full health. It helps them to appreciate the scientifically-demonstrable fact that fruits are the foods to which we, by virtue of the structure and function of our digestive equipment, are best adapted and from which we humans will receive the finest nourishment. Making this adjustment in their thinking can change sick people into sturdy, strong, miraculously well people.
Clients must also disabuse their minds of the popular delusion, as Dr. Herbert M. Shelton terms it, that eating great quantities of food is necessary to health and strength. We used to believe that ourselves! We used to believe that it was necessary to provide great variety in order to enjoy our meals. Brandy, our collie, disabused us of that idea. Every morning, Brandy gets his dried figs and every evening his baked corn meal cakes, his pinto beans, lettuce and his egg. Every evening, he starts to drool at the same time. He doesn’t need a clock! Every evening, he eats that same meal and then licks the bowl until it shines. Very rarely is his meal changed. Oh! Occasionally, we will substitute a piece of avocado for the egg, or a bit of cheese, but that is all. You see, Brandy doesn’t even want variety!
We notice that our birds eat certain things at just about the same hour every day, as do the rabbits and the moles and the desert squirrels. The beans fall from the mesquite trees and soon are all gone, hidden in burrows for sustenance during the winter months. Humans don’t require so much variety. They don’t need so much food. They sicken on complex meals. Yes! Sometimes necessity forces change upon us.
Another popular idea that is around these days is the concept that our bodies are cry- ing for protein, for enormous amounts of protein. Clients find that change here is vital. Again knowledge of body happenings is the only way to bring about such change. They
must learn that simple molecule carbohydrates are our primary need and that when these are in short supply, as happens on the usual protein-starch-fat-sugar diet of the average person in America today, energy levels fall, nerves become deranged and health fails.
Our clients are victims of their own transgressions, transgressions fostered by super- stitions, beliefs and the mores of the times in which all of us live. The list of possible er- roneous ideas held by individual clients would probably fill a library. Many are of mod- ern origin, inculcated in the minds of the average person by direct and subliminal adver- tising; others have their origins in cultural mores which have been handed down from one generation to the next, perhaps for thousands of years. Many false ideas have also been inculcated in the minds of the very teachers who are presently instructing our chil- dren today, when they themselves sat as little children in the classrooms of their time. The “need” to be vaccinated against this or that virus or germ is a classic example of this last superstition.
It is the happy task of the informed practitioner to impart the knowledge which will light the lamp of conviction, that will bring about changes in thinking and changes in doing; the kind of changes required to make sick people well again.
Probably the most health-destroying of all superstitions is the one that has been around the longest: the idea that drugs can be instrumental in “curing” this or that ail- ment. Hygienists marvel that humans can be so stupid as to believe that taking more poi- sons into an already poisoned body will restore health to a sick person when strong men, in the prime of life, can be felled by the very same poison as surely as if penetrated in a vital organ by a well-aimed bullet!
But, that seems to be the perverseness of mankind. It is one of the great mysteries of the ages. Otherwise highly-intelligent men and women, all over the world, dutifully swallow their pills—Paul Erlich’s “magic bullets!” And all because their “doctor” tells them to!
Our clients do not possess our knowledge. Natural Hygiene is a totally strange con- cept to them, one about which they have grave doubts. They must be motivated by us to learn that health must be built; that it follows change; that we cannot poison ourselves into health, only into the grave!
To accomplish whatever changes are desirable in a client’s thinking and especially about the effectiveness of drugs in restoring health, we practitioners have to produce re- sults! Our clients have to be shown by whatever means at our command that poisons kill, they do not and cannot become the instrument of health. We must show our clients that, when they continue to indulge the causes of disease, disease will happen; but when they choose to seek after health-promoting ways, then they will be enabled to stand aside in awe and watch their troubling disease replaced by health. This kind of change can only be brought about by education and, as Hygienists, we well know that it must come or health will remain an elusive impossibility.
89.6.3 The Case of Rev. Kim
The Rev. Kim case illustrates how changing one’s confidence in magic bullets into an understanding of the importance of living healthfully, of obtaining every day a full quota of all the biodynamic requisites of life, can also change sickness into health and even bind married couples together into an even closer relationship.
The Rev. had some kind of obscure disease that had been variously diagnosed. No- body knew for sure what ailed him but, nevertheless, he had been prescribed numerous drugs, including a tranquilizing mood-altering drug. His condition had forced him to give up his pastoral duties and to go on a disability allowance. His wife had to work to support the two of them. There were several married children who lived out of state, so they were more or less on their own.
The Rev., it seems, was so depressed and frustrated by his inability to continue with his church work that he had actually become physically abusive as well as mentally so. In fact, his behavior and his treatment of his wife had become distinctly non-Christian!
Fortunately, someone called the Rev.’s attention to a course in Natural Hygiene that we were offering and both he and his wife enrolled. To this day, they say they don’t know why they enrolled, just that they must have been “led.”
This couple were both on drugs. In fact, they were swallowing pills “by the carload.” At this time, obviously, the only thing they had going for them was hope.
As they progressed in their learning, studying their lessons together, they began to make some simple changes. It wasn’t too long before they became private students and shortly thereafter the wife, and then the Rev., stopped taking their pills and adopted more Hygienic ways of eating and living. We will never forget how excited the Rev. was when he told us how “super” he felt on his daily breakfast of two bananas and 10 or 12 dates!
Well, to make a long story short, the Rev. now has his church back and his wife is now in an executive position with an important company. She confided to Dr. Elizabeth not too long ago that the Rev. is now more loving than ever. Two of their married chil- dren, after observing the transformation wrought in their parents, are now also “into” Natural Hygiene. Change can, indeed, be wonderful—and contagious!
== I Can! ==
Applied nutrition represents the “I CAN” philosophy of living, a subtle psychological approach, using the psyche positively, which gradually does away with the old erroneous and negative concepts and ideas which limit and constrain the thinking of most clients on first meeting and replaces them with a sense of being in tune with the positive.
Once our clients are fortified with knowledge and provided with a well-marked road to follow, one furnished the start by the practitioner, then, more often than not, they come to see a bright light beckoning to them at the end of the tunnel of darkness and fear which formerly surrounded them.
Through knowledge comes conviction and once a person becomes convinced in his mind of the Tightness of what you teach, more often than not, the doubter becomes the positive thinker. He verbalizes to himself, “Yes I CAN do it! I can bring about these changes! I CAN live in such a way that health MUST happen. This is a way of life. I CAN be, healthier than I now am. I CAN change. I REALLY CAN.
It is so important for clients to understand that, with you to guide them, they will be in charge of their own lives and no longer dependent upon a dispenser of pills nor will they, in their old age, require nurses to burp them and to change their diapers, so to speak. They begin to appreciate the immensity of the possible. They will no longer be required to take pills to elevate or to depress their vacillating moods because they un- derstand that when health replaces sickness, they will feel euphoric with a natural high. They will no longer have to have recourse to hormones to make them into what they should not be.
Instead, the possible is theirs for the doing, for the changing. Through learning the ways of life and understanding the rules of life, they can find their own way, they can take charge of Self.
Understanding the potential behind the I CAN! will often make performers out of the helpless ones who are so because their cells are sick. The mind and the body are one and when the mind contains positive thoughts—thoughts that are capable, ready-to-go thoughts—then these thoughts replace the emotions of fear, anxiety and worry so mira- cles can indeed happen!
Clients must be given to understand that when we have problems, physical or other- wise, we must find solutions. If we do not, we simply cheat ourselves. If our problem is one of sickness and we do not find a solution, we can cheat ourselves out of life!
We have said elsewhere that attitudes are contagious, both the attitude that we, as practitioners display to the world, and the attitude cultivated in or by our students. We have an outer and an inner attitude. If our inner attitude is a conviction that we CAN attain better health, we WILL because our attitude strengthens our subconscious power and this power pervades the entire body, generating power in our endocrine glands, in our heart, in our brain stem and servicing nerves, in all organs, including our organs of digestion.
This is important, vitally so, for remember all that we are is dependent upon nerve power and upon the efficiency of our digestive powers.
If you believe you can, you will act. This is one of the great, not-well-understood laws of life.
If your inner self is powered by fear, it will soon pervade your being, too. If you fear that health will continue to elude you, fear that life will soon depart from you, you will remain in the sickness rut and more and more pain and suffering will be your unhap- py lot simply because your inner fear-packed YOU will slowly, or rapidly, dissipate its power as it fears. Fear and worry are negative attitudes that steal away body power.
Far too many among us think and say, “if only.” If only, I had this or that, I could be rich. If only I could find the right doctor, I could be well!”
Charles M. Simmons reminded us that we need to change that attitude to “if I do this, I will get what I want” attitude. This is a positive attitude which means you have a plan of action and that you will work your plan. When the plan is sound and we go into action, we will fulfill our every dream.
That’s what the I CAN! concept is all about. The Hygienic practitioner who can get this philosophy across to his client and who gives him a workable plan to start him on his road to becoming a self-performer will be the successful practitioner. His clients will change from timid, doubtful, unhappy souls lacking power, souls filled with negative forces that are doomed to cheat and “to fail, into forward-looking, power-filled persons whose positive attitudes cannot help but bring to them the longed-for successful conclu- sion: the euphoria of superb health.
== Questions & Answers ==
'''You maintain that health is normal and that being sick is abnormal. How can this be? Doesn’t everyone have something wrong with him, even though it may be very minor?'''
You are correct when you say that I believe health to be our normal (natural) heritage. People become sick when they do not adequately answer the needs of their bodies, either through ignorance or because of other circumstances. Many people are sick today simply because they do not have knowledge of what these needs are. They simply follow the herd and do just as everybody else does. This is, of course, especially true when it comes to eating. We WANT to eat like everybody else, eats but the laws of life decree that eating that way is probably the most usual cause of disease. Therefore, if we desire health, we must eat foods to which we are biologi- cally best adapted.
'''Scientists and dietitians have proved by laboratory experiments that we all need a variety of different kinds of food. Why do you claim that this idea is all wrong and that fruits are a perfect food?'''
It was determined many years ago by a Yale researcher, by the name of Pot- tenger, that with cats, it takes three to four generations to prove the adequacy or inadequacy of a particular diet. I suspect that this is true with humans, also, and per- haps even many more generations since humans take far longer than cats do to mature. Laboratory research is more often than not unreliable when it comes to feeding humans. We are not static test tubes, we are nutritive process which is ongoing and extremely complicated. Furthermore, many feeding experiments are performed on test animals who are biologically quite different from humans. We cannot, as true scientists, make a direct correlation as to compared results with two biologically different beings. That is not scientific. We have far more reliable evidence and that is the evidence observed in certain tribes and peoples who have lived in a certain manner and eaten certain foods for thousands of years. The health of the Hunzas and of many others who live on a largely fruitarian diet is incontrovertible proof of the correctness of their diet. In contrast, we see the short, pain-filled lives of the vast majority of those who eat in ways contrary to human physiological and biolog- ical requirements. We can eat a variety of fruits, if need be. We can eat vegetables, fruits and nuts, if we crave variety. What we don’t need is food and ideas concocted in a laboratory setting. We are feeding MAN, not a test tube or some other animal.
'''Your I CAN! concept sounds like a good plan in theory, but how do you know if it will work?'''
We have seen it work! Even in our own lives. When Dr. Elizabeth was so ill and wracked by rheumatic pains, she felt trapped. At holiday times she would say to herself, “I must make this an especially happy occasion because I probably won’t be here next year!” This is negative thinking. This is the kind of thinking that de- stroys. She kept getting worse. It really wasn’t until we went to Europe and saw that people DID recover from many different kinds of illnesses when they learned what and how to eat that we and especially she, began to have the beginning of more positive thoughts. And when she first read Dr. Shelton’s book, “Orthotrophy,” Vol- ume II of The Hygienic System, it was like magic. She KNEW she could get better and from then on it was clear sailing. I don’t mean to imply that there were not healing crises. There were plenty of them, but she faced up to them and got over them because she continued doing what she knew was right to do! This is generally the case once people understand that nature not only revenges wrong doing but also rewards correct practices. Their whole attitude changes. They become filled with “Positivities!”
'''Does a person always have to change abruptly, immediately? I can see where this might be very difficult for some people.'''
No. A person does not always have to change abruptly. Of course nothing is to be gained by putting off making all the required changes and doing so immediately. Delay can sometimes make full recovery more difficult and prolonged. But, bear in mind that any change for the better is health-promoting, even though it be but minor. With certain timid souls, radical change is scary and with such people, we encourage them initially to take “baby steps.” As they succeed in conquering little goals, they can then move on to larger ones until, suddenly, they realize they have gone the distance, ran the mile, as it were. They have been successful. Then, usual- ly, there’s no stopping them!
== Article #1: The Great Awakener by Dr. Herbert M. Shelton ==
Understanding has been defined as “the power to make experience more intelligible by analyzing it in the light of valid and appropriate general concepts.”
The man who analyzes and understands may accept or reject on a basis of intelli- gence. He carefully considers and weighs all the facts and principles involved in a propo- sition and arrives at a decision.
Snap judgments and emotional acceptances or rejections do not grow out of a process of this kind. When we accept or reject a new idea or a new practice only because it disagrees or agrees or appears to disagree or agree with our prepossessions and pre- conceptions, we are guided, not by intelligence, but by prejudice and emotion.
Analysis is the sole guide for intelligent selection of alternative courses of action. If we lack sufficient data to make a full analysis, we do not accept or reject, but suspend judgment until more data can be obtained.
Mass media, so popular today, not alone with advertisers, but also with propagan- dists and pseudo-educators, make use of a form of hypnotic technique in their efforts to sway the popular mind.
By the constantly reiterated slogan, by frequent repetition of words and gestures, by holding the same image always before the minds of their intended victims, they seek to create a state of semi-somnambulism in which the poor victims of the mass media processes do exactly as they are told.
The people are said to be “conditioned” by such processes. Not merely the obvious, but also the hidden, persuaders are employed in this mass conditioning of the minds of the people.
Hitler’s use of the “big lie” was made effective by the same process. In advertising and in much of the propaganda of various groups in our culture, the same effective use of the “big lie” is seen. No better example of this can be offered than the constant stream of false medical propaganda that pours from the presses.
Among a people who have been conditioned to “think” in slogans and to follow the crowd in all things, truth has rough sledding. When a revolutionary new truth that seems likely to disturb the status quo is presented to the herd mind, the owner is likely to quote some popular slogan and swing off into the jitterbug line.
In our mass conditioned culture none of us are ourselves: We are faithful copies of what our masters want us to be.
Often arguing heatedly for or against this or that, we suffer a myopic inability to peer beneath the surface and discern the reality that lies below. We almost always miss tie fact that our acceptances and our rejections, as well as the receptors and rejectors, are all part of a very complex, persuasive cultural process.
It is disheartening to listen to the discussion of contemporary acceptances by the ro- bot minds that constitute the product of our overworked mass media. But the case is not as hopeless as it seems.
Truth has a way of awakening sleepwalkers and clearing the conditioned cobwebs from their minds.
No man armed with the truth is ever welcome in any culture. He is spat upon and discredited by the masters of the culture and their robot underlings, in proportion to the extent that he is feared. But he never fails to dehypnotize many of the victims of the mass-cultural process.
Today we witness the gratifying sight of many sleepwalkers awakening from their fever-dream as a result of coming in contact with Hygienic truth.
We must bring this truth to more and more of the sleepers, that they also may awak- en.
== Article #2: Overcoming Compulsive Habits by Stanley Bass, D.C. ==
Habits determine success or failure. I don’t care what you want to achieve in life, you can train yourself to be a success or you can train yourself to be a failure. If you allow yourself to swim in bad habits, you are going to be trapped. Walker, one of the great early Hygienists had the ability to inspire people to right living, as did other early Hy- gienists. It seems that since the early days of the 1920’s somehow the writers of Natural Hygiene took out the inspirational, the spiritual aspects of it. We were living in a sci- entific age and everyone wanted to be scientific and Hygienic doctors did not want to
be thought of as quacks or mystics or strange people so they left out the inspirational part, but I have come to the conclusion that the only thing that makes people change is inspiration. You can give them all the facts in the world and convince them in black and white that this is the right way but that doesn’t mean they will do it. The only way they will do it is if you get them emotionally excited.
Habits determine success or failure. If you are willing to go through these changes we have been talking about and get rid of the bad habits, reintroduce some new habits, you can do anything you want to do with your life. I don’t care what you have done. As I mentioned before, for 15 years I failed. I tried to fast to the finish. I fasted 10 days, 12 days, 14 days, 17 days and I would get caught with the wrong thought and I’d be pulled off. All my friends said to me, “Stanley, forget it; it can’t be done.” But I didn’t give up; I kept doing it until I succeeded. The only failure, mark one thing well, is if you try to do something 1,000 times and you fail, then you quit trying. You are not a failure until you stop trying, and if you stop trying you are going to be a failure for sure. If you keep try- ing, eventually you’re going to do it. So the only failure is the person who stops trying, not the one who tries 1,000 times and doesn’t do it. Remember that and don’t get dis- couraged. Every time you fall back, remember this is normal in learning any new habits. Don’t let it discourage you; keep going; never give up!
You shouldn’t condemn yourself for failure. Some people have a bad habit of saying, when they try something and they don’t succeed, “What a damn fool I am, what a louse.” They start criticizing themselves and they tell all their friends about how stupid they are. “I’m so stupid, how could I do this?” They want everyone to know about it and by the time they get through they have lost all their energy and they can’t do anything. They condemn themselves to the point that they lose all their drive. Don’t do it, don’t con- demn yourself. You’re divine. Everyone in this world is God-like but doesn’t know it. Let it come out. Don’t condemn yourself. Remember you can start all over again. Keep going.
Now, I must talk about procrastination. It’s the worst thing you can do. It’s the most vicious technique devised by the human brain since the beginning of time. That was my chief failing for a long time, so I am familiar with it and know all the tricks of it. What is procrastination? Procrastination is saying to yourself, “Oh, today is not a good day for me to do this; I’ll start tomorrow.” I’m a Natural Hygienist. When I opened up my institution a few summers ago in Woodridge, four out of five persons who checked in said, “I’m a Natural Hygienist.” Do you know what they are doing? Two of them were bugging me for meat and chicken. I saw them eating bread, cake and candy bars. When they left, we had to turn the mattresses over and found chewing gum wrappers and can- dy bar wrappers. They called themselves Natural Hygienists. What they mean by that is that they are procrastinators. They are telling themselves, “I ate well on Sunday. I’m really a Natural Hygienist, but today I’m under a lot of stress. It is not a good day for me, I’ll start tomorrow.” Then when tomorrow comes, “Oh! Gee I’ve got this problem. It’s not good, I’ll have to start next week. It will be easier. It’s snowing out, or I have to meet people.” You know the mind can rationalize anything. The mind is beautiful.
Hitler felt that he was a good man. Do you know that “Two-Gun” Crowley killed two policemen right before they sent him to the electric chair? He felt that he was a good man and a benefactor to humanity. You know people rationalize anything, even murder. If you can rationalize murder, if the greatest murderers that ever lived, the most famous ones felt that they were good human beings, what about a Natural Hygienist who is go- ing to start tomorrow? How easy it is for him to rationalize if “Two-Gun” Crowley could do it. The mind will, rationalize anything you want, but don’t play that game, because its too easy. I did that for 18 years.
What is procrastination? It’s telling yourself that you are going to start tomorrow; that you are really doing what you think you are doing, but for some reason it is inconve- nient. It’s lying to yourself and saying you are going to postpone something. You don’t
say you’re not going to do this, you say you’re going to postpone it. “I’m really this but I’ll start tomorrow.” So you see, you want to fool yourself.
I know a man who takes long fasts, lasting 30 days or more. After the fast he says, “Gee, I really purified my body so well.” Then he starts with foods that are borderline and says, “Well, with a 30-day fast, I must have cleaned out six months of wrong liv- ing.” Then he eats more and more garbage and before a few weeks go by he is eating the worst garbage in the world and he rationalizes that too. He says, “Well, I can eat meat and candy bars because the fasts will eliminate anything.” So he eats worse than the average person who is afraid to do that. He seesaws between fasting and bingeing. I know one man who has been doing it for 30 years. I did it for 18. I know how easy it is. So don’t play the game of procrastination. It is the most insidious of all. It’s a liar’s game. It’s a fool’s game, and it is a failing game. Face up to it. If you are going to do something, do it this second. There is no tomorrow; only the present is real; the past is a memory, the future a hope. Only this second is real. If you are not doing it now, you are playing a game with yourself.
The law of vital accommodation needs a balance wheel. You can poison yourself but there is no true adaptation to these poisons. Your body only tolerates them. I explained that. It’s stimulation first, then depression. All bad habits and addictions are expressed in stimulation and depression. You introduce poisons and you get “high.” Then the body throws you down into a state of recuperation which is interpreted by the brain as depres- sion, because the metabolism slows down to recuperate.
Why are bad habits hard to break? It’s because they are stimulating, and the more stimulating the habit, the harder is to break because the lower down you go in depression to recuperate. That’s ,all; that’s the secret of habits explained. If you study all the addicts around you, you will find this true. The worse the habit, the more poisonous it is, the more difficult it is to break because of the greater “down” you go through when you try to stop it. But if you know that stopping it puts you into the recuperation phase, and when you are feeling “down,” the body is trying to balance matters and rebuild to make you over again, and if you are willing to face it, you can give up any habit you desire. That is how I gave up tobacco. I took the depression “cure.” I stayed in bed and slept through all the downs until my energy was recharged.
You see, energy comes, not from the thing that makes you feel good—that stimulated you—you can get high on fruit. If you get up in the morning feeling pretty good, and you start eating fruit and you eat more sugar and then more sugar, this will stimulate you and you will get your high. If you overeat fruit it may make you nervous, even restless, and if you eat enough of it, you are going to go down, because you overstimulated your pan- creas, and your pancreas is burning up this deadly enemy of extra sugar and in so doing, it produces a temporary state of low blood sugar, which is interpreted as depression. The body intends for you to be depressed so you can recuperate. It can only do it by reducing your blood sugar to the point at it stops the excitation and allows you to recuperate. So you see, there is a rationale in all of nature. Whenever you go down, it is because you have to go down to become normal again. If you know that, and you don’t care—you’re not afraid of being “depressed”—you can break any habit and then some.
Now I want to bring up the secret of changing anything in a second. This took me 30 years to learn through trial and error and suffering. When I discovered it, I could do any- thing I wanted to at any moment. I could give up anything, any object or any possessive attachments of a person if I had to. This is a secret of learning to do without anything and changing anything.
The only suffering we can experience is due to the emotions. We experience suffer- ing due to emotions and feelings and this comes from identification, from locking into something. In other words, if you are watching a movie and you see this little child and the child falls down and gets hurt, you may cry. You are identifying with the child—you are becoming the child—you are experiencing the child’s problems so you are suffering. You’re crying. If your broker calls and tells you that your $30,000 in A.T.&T. stock has
collapsed and hit the skids and you are now worth $10.00, you either decide whether you want to continue living at that point, or try to get out of this somehow. You have just lost a fortune in the market, but then when you go to sleep there is no suffering. There is no stock market once you dream, and after your dream you go into a dreamless state of sleep and there is no suffering—there is no stockmarket—there are no more family problems—there are no problems—there is no more crime in the streets, there is nothing but peace. So you see, suffering is related to identification with and idea.
At the time I was studying Yoga, there was something in a book that triggered me off. The author said, “Nothing exists that thinking makes it so” or “I, think, therefore I am,” or “nothing exists but our thoughts.” In other words, it doesn’t mean that if you are unconscious that the world, has no reality, it means that for you, if you are not thinking, there’s no suffering for you. If you’re asleep, there’s no suffering for you because you’re not in a state of identification with the object which evokes an emotion. So I said to my- self, “If that’s the story, that’s why I failed.”
You see, everytime I tried to fast and I didn’t lose my appetite, I’d look at the food and I’d smell it and I’d think of how good it smelled and how good it would taste going down and then before I realized it, I would get emotionally worked up. My juices began flowing and then I couldn’t turn back anymore, I was finished. I had to eat and I’d wres- tle or fight with anyone who’d try to stop me. Since I never lost my appetite, I knew that I had to master myself mentally. The average person loses his appetite after a few days of fasting. So there is no struggle—no problem. I didn’t lose my appetite so I had to win the battle in the mental realm somewhere. I said, “It’s got to be done on the battleground of thought.”
At that time I had finished college and I was called to go into town on a job. I was part of a band in a place that had a smorgasbord. Every day they put the food in front of the band. People would march up and down for hours and eat. I was on a fast and I fasted for 38 days and I looked at the food and I said, “Ah ha, you’re the culprit, you trapped me before and you are not going to trap me again.” I looked at that food and refused to smell it, and I refused to see it. So, here I was, walking and playing, and the aromas were permeating my body, but I refused to acknowledge the existence of the food so there was no suffering. Even though I never lost my appetite and fasted for 38 days. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. There was no pain at all. There was the secret of learning how to do anything immediately.
That’s it. I wrote extensively on that in a book “Achieving Supreme Nutrition by Several Progressive Weekly Diets.” You have to go through everything. Determine your goal. Expect to practice. These are long term concepts but the immediate battleground is in the territory of thought. If you know that you are dealing with a thought and you decide who is going to be the boss, you can succeed. The secret is, when you get the desire or the temptation, at that moment you must not consider it at all, but simply move your mind to another subject. Transpose your thoughts at that point. You have got to move fast because it only takes a few second of emotions to get into the picture and the emotions are very strong. They are stronger than the intellect, and if you allow your- self to get emotionally involved, you can easily lose. So you must win the battle before that happens. You have a couple of seconds to win the battle, and if you understand how thought works, you will win every time. You’ll be in control.
== Article #3: The Negative Power of “If” by Charles M. Simmons ==
There are many proven laws that govern the human relations and personal management of one’s life. There are laws that govern negative effects as well as positive effects, but all of them are based on the actions of “cause and effect.” When certain conscious thoughts and subconscious attitudes cause a person to do certain things a certain way, the end result will always be the same. In fact, the result can be predicted, even before the action starts. This “cause and effect” action in human living is inevitable.
The presence of the word “if,” when applied negatively in your life, is an example of the power of such laws. When you say, “If I had certain abilities ...” or, “If I could be a certain kind of person ...” or, “If I could do what I want to ...,” you are telling the world that you have a daydream with no plan for making it a reality. You are automatically letting a negative law affect you. A dream with no plan for action means that nothing will happen. Nothing can happen because you block out action through the power of a negative attitude. “If,” when used this way, means “No,” “Never,” “Can’t.”
However, “If” can be changed from a black, gloomy word to a bright red-letter word by coupling it with the words, “I do.” This puts you under the influence of a positive law. When you say, “If I do certain things, I will get what I want,” you are expressing both a “dream” and a plan for making it come true.
Excerpt from Stop Cheating Yourself.
= Article #4: Excerpt from “In Tune With the Infinite” by Ralph Waldo =
Trine
It is the people who have come into realization of their own true selves who carry this power with them and who radiate it wherever they go—they have, as we say, found their center. And in all the great universe there is but one center—the Infinite Power that is working in and through all. The ones who then have found a center are the ones who have come into the realization of their oneness with the Infinite Power, the ones who recognize themselves as spiritual beings, for the Infinite is spirit.
Such is the person of power. Centered in the Infinite, you have thereby, so to speak, connected yourself with, you have attached your belts to, the great powerhouse of the universe. You are constantly drawing power to yourself from all sources. For, thus cen- tered, knowing yourself, conscious of your own power, the thoughts that go from your mind are thoughts of strength; and by virtue of the law that like attracts like, you by your thoughts are continually attracting to yourself from all quarters the aid of all whose thoughts are thoughts of strength, and in this way you are linking yourself with this order of thought in the universe.
And so to those that have, to those shall be given. This is simply the working of a natural law. Your strong, positive and hence constructive thought is continually work- ing success for you along all lines and continually bringing to you help from all direc- tions. The things that you see, that you create in the ideal, are through the agency of this strong constructive thought continually clothing themselves, taking form, manifesting themselves in the material. Silent, unseen forces are at work that eventually manifest in the visible.
Fear and all thought of failure never suggest themselves to you when you are such a person; or if they do, your mind expels them at once so you aren’t influenced by, and don’t attract to you, this type of thought from without; you’re in another current of thought. So, the weakening, failure-bringing thoughts of the fearing, vascillating or pessimistic about you have no influence on you. The one who is of the negative, fear- ing kind not only has his energies and his physical agents weakened or even paralyzed through the influence of this kind of thought that is born within him, but he also in this way connects himself with this order of thought in the world about him. And in the degree that he does this he becomes a victim to the weak, fearing, negative minds all around him. Instead of growing in power, he increases in weakness. He is in the same order of thought with those of, whom it is true, “and even that which they have shall be taken from them.” This again is simply the working of a natural law, the same as is its opposite. Fearing lest I lose even what I have I hide it away in a napkin. Very well. I must then pay the price of my “fearing lest I lose.”
Thoughts of strength both build strength from within and attract it from without. Thoughts of weakness actualize weakness from within and attract it from without. Courage begets strength, fear begets weakness. And so courage begets success, fear
begets failure. It is the man or the woman of faith, and hence of courage, who is the mas- ter of circumstances and who makes his or her power felt in the world. It is the man or the woman who lacks faith and who as a consequence is weakened and crippled by fears and forebodings who is the creature of all passing occurrences.
Within each one lies the cause of whatever comes to him. Each has it in his own hands to determine what comes. Everything in the visible, material world has its origin in the unseen, the spiritual, the thought world. This is the world of cause, the former is the world of effect. The nature of the effect is always in accordance with the nature of the cause. What one lives in his invisible thought world, he is continually actualizing in his visible material world. If he would have any conditions different in the latter, he must make the necessary change in the former. A clear realization of this great fact would bring success to thousands of men and women who all about us are now in the depths of despair. It would bring health, abounding health and strength to thousands now diseased and suffering. It would bring peace and joy to thousands now unhappy and ill at ease.
And oh, the thousands all about us who are continually living in the slavery of fear. The spirits within that should be strong and powerful, are rendered weak and impo- tent. Their energies are crippled, their efforts are paralyzed. Fear is everywhere—fear of want, fear of starvation, fear public opinion, fear of private opinion, fear that what we own today may not be ours tomorrow, fear of sickness, fear of death. Fear has become with millions a fixed habit. The thought is everywhere. The thought is thrown upon us from every direction ... To live in continual dread, continual cringing, continual fear of anything, be it loss of love, loss of money, loss of position or situation, is to take the readiest means to lose what we fear we shall.”
By fear nothing is to be gained but, on the contrary, everything is to be lost. “I know this is true,” says one, “but I am given to fear; it’s natural to me and I can’t help it.” Can’t help it! In saying this you indicate one great reason for your fear by showing that you do not even know yourself as yet. You must know yourself in order to know your powers, and not until you know them can you use them wisely and fully. Don’t say you can’t help it. If you think you can’t, the chances are that you can’t. If you think you can, and act in accordance with this thought, then not only are the chances that you can, but if you act fully in accordance with it, that you can and that you will is an absolute cer- tainty. It was Virgil who in describing the crew which in his mind would win the race, said of them, “They can because they think they can.” In other words, this very attitude of mind on their part will infuse a spiritual power into their bodies that will give them the strength and endurance which will enable them to win.
Then take the thought that you CAN—take it merely as a seed thought, if need be; plant it in your consciousness, tend it, cultivate it and it will gradually reach out and gather strength from all quarters. It will focus and make positive and active the spiritual force within you that is now scattered and of little avail. It will draw to itself force from without. It will draw to your aid, the influence of other minds of its own nature, minds that are fearless, strong, courageous. You will thus draw to yourself and connect your- self with this order of thought. If you are earnest and faithful, the time will soon come when all fear will loose its hold; and instead of being an embodiment of weakness and a creature of circumstances, you will find yourself a tower of strength and a master of circumstances.