Fasting
Next in importance to building up the blood on a natural basis
is the elimination of waste, morbid matter and poisons from the
system. This depends to a large extent upon the right (natural)
diet; but it must be promoted by the different methods of eliminative
treatment: fasting, hydrotherapy, massage, physical exercise,
air- and sunbaths and, in the way of medicinal treatment, by homeopathic,
herb and vitochemical remedies.
Foremost among the methods of purification stands fasting,
which of late years has become quite popular and is regarded by
many people as a panacea for all human ailments. However, it is
a two-edged sword. According to circumstances, it may do a great
deal of good or a great deal of harm.
Kuhne, the German pioneer of Nature Cure, claimed that "disease
is a unit," that it consists in the accumulation of waste
and morbid matter in the system. Since his time, many "naturists"
claim that fasting offers the best and quickest means for eliminating
systemic poisons and other encumbrances.
To "fast it out" seems simple and plausible, but it
does not always prove to be successful in practice. Fasting enthusiasts
forget that the elimination of waste and morbid matter from the
system is more of a chemical than a mechanical process. They also
overlook the fact that in many cases lowered vitality
and weakened powers of resistance precede and make
possible the accumulation of morbid matter in the organism.
If the encumbrances consist merely of superfluous flesh and fat
or of accumulated waste materials, fasting may be sufficient to
break up the accumulations and to eliminate the impurities that
are clogging blood and tissues.
If, however, the disease has its origin in other than mechanical
causes, or if it is due to a weakened, negative constitution and
lowered powers of resistance, fasting may aggravate the abnormal
conditions instead of improving them.
We hear frequently of long fasts, extending over days and weeks,
undertaken recklessly without the prescription and guidance of
a competent medical adviser, without proper preparation of the
system and the right subsequent treatment. Many a good constitution
has thus been permanently injured and wrecked.
When Fasting Is Indicated
Persons of sanguine, vital temperament, with the animal qualities
strongly developed, enslaved by bad habits and evil passions,
will be greatly benefited by occasional short fasts. In such cases,
the experience affords a fine drill in self-discipline, strengthening
of self-control and conquest of the lower appetites.
Vigorous, fleshy people, positive physically and mentally, especially
those who do not take sufficient physical exercise, should take
frequent fasts of one, two, or three days' duration for the reduction
of superfluous flesh and fat and for the elimination of systemic
waste and other morbid materials. Such people should never eat
more than two meals a day, and many get along best on one meal.
However, different temperaments and constitutions require different
treatment and management. People of a nervous, emotional temperament,
especially those who are below normal in weight and physically
and mentally negative, may be seriously and permanently injured
by fasting. They should never fast except in acute diseases
and during eliminative healing crises, when Nature calls for the
fast as a means of cure.
People of this type are usually thin, with weak and flabby muscles.
Their vital activities are at a low ebb and their magnetic envelopes
(aura) are wasted and attenuated like their physical bodies. The
red aura, which is created by the action of the purely animal
functions and forces, is more or less deficient or entirely lacking.
Such people have the tendency to become abnormally sensitive to
conditions in the magnetic field (the astral plane).
Next to the hypnotic or mediumistic process, there is nothing
that induces abnormal psychism so quickly as fasting. During a
prolonged fast, the purely animal functions of digestion, assimilation
and elimination are almost completely at a standstill. This depression
of the physical functions arouses and increases the psychic functions
and may produce intense emotionalism and abnormal activity of
the senses of the spiritual-material body, the individual thus
becoming abnormally clairvoyant, clairaudient and otherwise sensitive
to conditions on the spiritual planes of life.
This explains the spiritual exaltation and the visions of heavenly
scenes and beings or the fights with demons which are frequently,
indeed uniformly, reported by hermits, ascetics, saints, yogi,
fakirs and dervishes.
Fasting facilitates hypnotic control of the sensitive by positive
intelligences either on the physical or on the spiritual plane
of being. In the one case we speak of hypnotism, in the other
of mediumship, obsession or possession. These conditions are usually
diagnosed by the regular practitioner as nervousness, nervous
prostration, hysteria, paranoia, delusional insanity, double personality,
mania, etc.
The destructive effects of fasting are intensified by solitude,
grief, worry, introspection, religious exaltation or any other
form of depressive or destructive mental and emotional activity.
Spirit controls often force their subjects to abstain from food,
thus rendering them still more negative and submissive. Psychic
patients, when controlled or obsessed, will frequently not eat
unless they are forced or fed like an infant. When asked why they
do not want to eat, these patients reply: "I mustn't. They
will not let me." When we say: "Who?" the answer
is: "These people. Don't you see them?" pointing to
a void, and becoming impatient when told that no one is there.
The regular school says delusion; we call it abnormal clairvoyance.
In other instances the control tells the subject that his food
and drink are poisoned or unclean. To the obsessed victim these
suggestions are absolute reality.
To place persons of the negative, sensitive type on prolonged
fasts and thus to expose them to the dangers just described is
little short of criminal. Such patients need an abundance of the
most positive animal and vegetable foods in order to build up
and strengthen their physical bodies and their magnetic envelopes,
which form the dividing and protecting wall between the terrestrial
plane and the magnetic field.
A
negative vegetarian diet, consisting principally of fruits,
nuts, cereal and pulses, but deficient in animal foods (the dairy
products, eggs, honey) and in the vegetables growing in or near
the ground may result in conditions similar to those which
accompany prolonged fasting.
Animal foods are elaborated under the influence of a higher life-element*
than that controlling the vegetable kingdom, and foods derived
from the animal kingdom are necessary to develop and stimulate
the positive qualities in man.
*This
subject will be treated more fully in another volume of this series
entitled "Natural Dietitics."
In the case of the psychic, who is already deficient in the physical
(animal) and overdeveloped in the spiritual qualities, it is especially
necessary, in order to restore and maintain the lost equilibrium,
to build up in him the animal qualities.
How to Take an Occasional Therapeutic Fast
Before,
during and after a therapeutic fast, everything must be done to
keep elimination active, in order to prevent the reabsorption
of the toxins that are being stirred up and liberated.
Fasting involves rapid breaking down of the tissues. This creates
great quantities of worn-out cell materials and other morbid substances.
Unless these poison-producing accumulations are promptly eliminated,
they will be reabsorbed into the system and cause autointoxication.
To prevent this, bowels, kidneys and skin must be kept in active
condition. The diet, for several days before and after the fast,
should consist largely of uncooked fruits and vegetables and the
different methods of natural stimulative treatment to assure proper
bowel action should be systematically applied.
During a fast, every bit of vitality must be economized; therefore
the passive treatments are to be preferred to active exercise,
although a certain amount of exercise (especially walking) daily
in the open air accompanied by deep breathing should not be neglected.
While fasting, intestinal evacuation usually ceases, especially
where there is a natural tendency to sluggishness of the bowels.
Injections [salt and baking soda enemas are best] are therefore
in order and during prolonged fasts may be taken every few days.
By prolonged fasts we understand fasts that last from one to four
weeks, short fasts being those of one, two or three days' duration.
Moderate drinking is beneficial during a fast as well as at other
times; but excessive consumption of water, the so-called flushing
of the system, is very injurious. Under ordinary conditions from
five to eight glasses of water a day are probably sufficient;
the quantity consumed must be regulated by the desire of the patient.
Those who are fasting should mix their drinking water with the
juice of acid fruits, preferably lemon, orange or grapefruit.
These juices act as eliminators and are fine natural antiseptics.
Never
use distilled water, whether during a fast or at any other time.
Deprived of its own mineral constituents, distilled water leeches
the mineral elements and organic salts out of the tissues of the
body and thereby intensifies dysemic [blood deterioration] conditions.
While fasting, the right mental attitude is all-important. Unless
you can do it with perfect equanimity, without fear or misgiving,
do not fast at all. Destructive mental conditions may more than
offset the beneficial effects of the fast.
To recapitulate: Never undertake a prolonged fast unless you have
been properly prepared by natural diet and treatment, and never
without the guidance of a competent Nature Cure doctor.
Fasting in Chronic Diseases
At all times some of our patients can be found fasting; but they
do not begin until the right physiological and psychological moment
has arrived, until the fast is indicated. When the organism, or
rather the individual cell, is ready to begin the work of elimination,
then assimilation should cease for the time being, because it
interferes with the excretory processes going on in the system.
To
fast before the system is ready for it, means mineral salts starvation
and defective elimination.
Given a vigorous, positive constitution, encumbered with too much
flesh and with a tendency to chronic constipation, rheumatism,
gout, apoplexy and other diseases due to food poisoning, a fast
may be indicated from the beginning. But it is different with
persons of the weak, negative type.
Ordinarily, the organism resembles a huge sponge, which absorbs
the elements of nutrition from the digestive tract. During a fast
the process is reversed, the sponge is being squeezed and gives
off the impurities contained in it.
However, this is a purely mechanical process and deals only with
the mechanical aspect of disease: with the presence of waste matter
in the system. It does not take into consideration the chemical
aspect of disease. We have learned that most of the morbid matter
in the system has its origin in the acid waste products of starchy
and protein digestion.
In rheumatism and gout, the colloid (glue-like) and earthy deposits
collect in the joints and muscular tissues; in arteriosclerosis,
in the arteries and veins; in paralysis, epilepsy and kindred
diseases, in brain and nerve tissues.
The
accumulation of these waste products is due, in turn, to a deficiency
in the system of the alkaline, acid-binding and acid-eliminating
mineral elements. In point of fact, almost every form
of disease is characterized by a lack of these organic mineral
salts in blood and tissues.
Stones, gravel (calculi), etc., grow in acid blood only, and must
be dissolved and eliminated by rendering the blood alkaline. This
is accomplished by the absorption of the alkaline salts, contained
most abundantly in the juicy fruits, the leafy and juicy vegetables,
the hulls of cereals and in milk.
How, then, are these all-important solvents and eliminators to
be supplied to the organism by total abstinence from food?
Prolonged fasting undoubtedly lowers the patient's vitality and
powers of resistance. But natural elimination of waste products
and systemic poisons (healing crises) depends upon increased
vitality and activity of the organism and the individual cells
that compose it.
For these reasons we find, in most cases, that proper adjustment
of the diet, both as to quality and quantity, together with the
different forms of natural corrective and stimulative treatment,
must precede the fasting.
The great majority of chronic patients have become chronics because
their skin, kidneys, intestines and other organs of elimination
are in a sluggish, atrophied condition. As a result, their system
is overloaded with morbid matter.
Moreover, during the fast the system has to live on its own tissues,
which are being broken down rapidly. This results in the production
and liberation of additional large quantities of morbid matter
and poisons, which must be eliminated promptly to prevent their
reabsorption.
However, the atrophic condition of the organs of elimination makes
this impossible and there are not enough alkaline mineral elements
to neutralize the destructive acids. Therefore the impurities
remain and accumulate in the system and may cause serious aggravations
and complications.
Is it not wiser first of all to build up the blood on a normal
basis by natural diet and to put the organs of elimination in
good working order by the natural methods of treatment before
fasting is enforced? This is, indeed, the only rational
procedure and will always be followed by the best possible
results.
When, under the influence of a rational diet, the blood has regained
its normal composition, when mechanical obstructions to the free
flow of blood and nerve currents have been removed by manipulative
treatment, when skin, kidneys, bowels, nerves and nerve centers,
in fact, every cell in the body has been stimulated into vigorous
activity by the various methods of natural treatment, then the
cells themselves begin to eliminate their morbid encumbrances.
The waste materials are carried in the blood stream to the organs
of elimination and incite them to acute reactions or healing crises
in the form of diarrheas, catarrhal discharges, fevers, inflammations,
skin eruptions, boils, abscesses, etc.
Now
the sponge is being squeezed and cleansed of its impurities
in a natural manner. The mucous membranes of stomach and bowels
are called upon to assist in the work of housecleaning; hence
the coated tongue, lack of appetite, digestive disturbances, nausea,
biliousness, sour stomach, fermentation, flatulence and occasionally
vomiting and purging.
These digestive disturbances are always accompanied by mental
depression, the blues, homesickness, irritability, fear, hopelessness,
etc.
With the advent of these cleansing and healing crises the physiological
and psychological moment for fasting has arrived. All the processes
of assimilation are at a standstill. The entire organism is eliminating.
We have learned that these healing crises usually arrive during
the sixth week of natural treatment.
To take food now would mean to force assimilation and thereby
to stop elimination and perchance to interfere with or to check
a beneficial healing crisis.
Therefore we regard it as absolutely essential to stop eating
as soon as any form of acute elimination makes its appearance
and we do not give any food except acid fruit juices diluted with
water until all signs of acute eliminative activity have subsided,
whether this require a few days or a few weeks or a few months.
Some time ago I treated a severe case of typhoid malaria. No food,
except water mixed with a little orange or lemon juice, passed
the lips of the patient for eight weeks. When all disease symptoms
had disappeared, we allowed a few days for the rebuilding of the
intestinal mucous membranes. Thereafter food was administered
with the usual precautions. The patient gained rapidly and within
six weeks weighed more than before the fever. During the entire
period I saw the patient only twice, the simple directions being
carried out faithfully by his relatives.