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.