If we panic at a headache or fever and suppress them with aspirin, if we worry about a minor infection and cart out the antibiotic artillery, we often get ourselves into a worse state simply out of fear. But if we welcome minor disturbances as early warning signals pointing out our mistakes and learn to interpret them, we will have plenty of time to make corrections and thereby avoid the escalation and aggravation of our health problems. Because the body tends to heal itself if allowed to do so, most of the time all we have to do is get out of the way and let it carry on. Thus, through rest, fasting, appropriate food selection, and a few gentle nudges from natural remedies, we can easily regain our equilibrium and thereby stand a good chance of functioning joyfully and actively for many years. Of course there are many of us who have made many mistakes and brought ourselves into a serious condition of ill health. If that is the case, it is no use feeling guilty; let us view the result of our actions as information rather than punishment. The best thing, then, is to undertake some lifestyle changes so as to avoid making things worse: change your diet, exercise, meditate, pay attention. In other words, become conscious. The approach to healing outlined in this book as a whole will cause no further harm, and quite possibly may help. However, food, or remedies, don’ t heal: If appropriate, they only allow the body to heal itself; or, if inappropriate, they may prevent it from doing so. That is why you will find no panacea here, no magic potion or elixir that will set everything aright, no single substance or remedy that will bring eternal deliverance from pain. There are only various ways of rebalancing the complex system that is our body, and it is up to each one of us to discover and make use of the ones that will be relevant and helpful to our own lives. *
Henry Bieler, M. D., wrote,“ Since the body is, more or less, the product of the food fed it, altering body chemistry by diet is not only feasible but most desirable in disease states.” 2 † Paavo Airola, a staunch supporter of supplementation, strongly recommended discontinuing it while fasting. 9 ‡ It’ s interesting that the A. M. A. Family Medical Guide describes the content of boils as“ cheesy.” 16 § Obtainable in health food stores.
‖ For a more detailed examination of skin disorders, see Michio Kushi’ s How to See Your Health. a These are the systems delineated, respectively, by Norman F. Childers, Nathan Pritikin, Max Gerson, William Donald Kelly, and George Ohsawa. Incidentally, the New York Times has reported that a growing number of medical analysts are challenging the official position that great strides have been made in the cure of cancer by chemotherapy and radiation. In the opinion of Hayan Bush, director of a cancer center in Ontario,“ We’ re not curing much more cancer now than we were a generation ago.” 20 b
According to Robert Mendelsohn, M. D.,“ There is a growing suspicion that immunization against relatively harmless childhood diseases may be responsible for the dramatic increase in autoimmune diseases since mass inoculations were introduced.” 23