|
Submitted by Steve Solomon
Nature Cure
Philosophy & Practice Based on the Unity of Disease & Cure
Henry Lindlahr, M.D.
"Ho, ye who suffer! Know ye suffer from vowselves. None else
compels - no other holds ye that ye live or die. "~ - Siddartha~
TO THE PROGRESSIVE PHYSICIANS OF THE AGE
There are two principal methods of treating disease. One is the
combative, the other the preventive. The trend of modern medical
research and practice in our great colleges and endowed research
institutes is almost entirely along combative lines, while the
individual, progressive physician learns to work more and more along
preventive lines. The slogan of modern medical science is, "Kill the
germ and cure the disease." The usual procedure is to wait until
acute or chronic diseases have fully developed, and then, if
possible, to subdue them by means of drugs, surgical operations, and
by means of the morbid products of disease, in the form of serums,
antitoxins, vaccines, etc. The combative method fights disease with
disease, poison with poison, and germs with germs and germ products.
In the language of the Good Book, it is "Beelzebub against the
Devil."
The preventive method does not wait until diseases have fully
developed and gained the ascendancy in the body, but concentrates
its best endeavors on preventing, by hygienic living and by natural
methods of treatment, the development of diseases. By these it
endeavors to put the human body in such a normal, healthy condition
that it is practically proof against infection or contagion by
disease taints and miasms, and against the inroads of germs,
bacteria and parasites.
The question is, which method is the most practical, the most
successful and most popular? Which will stand the test of "the
survival of the fittest" in the great struggle for existence?
The medical profession has good reason to be alarmed by the inroads
made in its work by irregular, unorthodox systems, schools and cults
of treating human ailments; but instead of raging at the audacious
presumption of these interlopers, would it not be better to inquire
if there is not some reason for the astonishing spread and
popularity of these therapeutic innovations?
Their success undoubtedly is based on the fact that they concentrate
their best efforts on preventive instead of combative methods of
treating disease. People are beginning to realize that it is cheaper
and more advantageous to prevent disease than to cure it. To create
and maintain continuous, buoyant good health means greater
efficiency for mental and physical work; greater capacity for the
true enjoyment of life, and the best insurance against failure and
poverty. Therefore, he who builds health is of greater value to
humanity than he who allows people to drift into disease through
ignorance of Nature's laws, and then attempts to cure them by
doubtful and uncertain combative methods.
It is said that in China the physician is hired and paid by the
year; that he receives a certain stipend as long as the members of
the family are in good health, but that the salary is suspended as
long as one of his charges is ill. If some similar method of
engaging and paying for medical services were in vogue in this
country the trend of medical research and practice would soon
undergo a radical change.
The diet expert, the hydropath, the physical culturist, the adjuster
of the spine, the mental healer, and Christian scientist, do not pay
much attention to the pathological conditions or to the symptoms of
disease. They regulate the diet and habits of living on a natural
basis, promote elimination, teach correct breathing and wholesome
exercise, correct the mechanical lesions of the spine, establish the
right mental and emotional attitude and, in so far as they succeed
in doing this, they build health and diminish the possibility of
disease. The successful doctor of the future will have to fall in
line with the procession and do more teaching than prescribing.
I realize that many of the statements and claims made in this volume
will seem radical and irrational to my colleagues of the regular
school of medicine. They win say that most of my teachings are
contrary to the firmly established theories of medical science. All
I ask, of them is not to judge too hastily; to observe, to think and
to test, and I am certain that they will find verified in actual
experience many of the teachings of the Nature Cure Philosophy.
Medical science has had to abandon innumerable theories and
practices which at one time were as firmly established as some of
the pet theories of today.
By none of the statements made in this book do I mean to deny the
necessity of combative methods under certain circumstances. What I
wish to emphasize is that the regular school of medicine is spending
too much of its effort along combative lines and not enough along
preventive. It would be foolish to deny the necessity of surgery in
traumatism, and in abnormal conditions which require mechanical
means of adjustment or treatment.
Such necessity, for instance, will exist in certain obstetrical
cases, as long as women have not learned, or are not willing to live
in such a way as to make surgical intervention unnecessary in
child-birth. The same is true with regard to the treatment of germ
diseases. As long as people persist in violating the laws of their
being, and thereby making their bodies prolific breeding grounds for
disease taints, germs and parasites which are bound to provoke
inflammatory, feverish processes (Nature's cleansing and healing
efforts), combative measures will have to be resorted to by the
physician, and precautionary measures against infection will have to
be observed, but these should be in harmony with Nature's endeavors,
not contrary and suppressive; they should tend to conserve and not
to destroy.
Natural dietetics, fasting, hydropathy, osteopathy, chiropractic,
and mental therapeutics, are combative as well as preventive, but if
properly applied they do not in any way injure the organism or
interfere with Nature's intent and Nature's methods. This cannot be
said for much of the surgical and medical treatment of the old
school of medicine. We criticize and condemn only those methods
which are suppressive and destructive instead of curative.
In many instances already the warnings and teachings of Nature Cure
Philosophy have been verified, and had to be heeded and accepted by
medical science. The exponents of Nature Cure protested against the
barbarous practice of withholding water from patients burning in
fever heat, and against the exclusion of fresh air from the sickroom
by order of the doctor. The cold water and no drug treatment of
typhoid fever, the water treatment for other acute diseases, as well
as the open air treatment for tuberculosis, were forced upon the
medical profession by the Nature Cure people. For more than half a
century the latter have been curing all inflammaory, feverish
diseases, from simple colds to scarlet fever, diphtheria,
cerebro-spinal meningitis, smallpox, appendicitis, etc., etc., by
hydropathy, fasting, and other natural methods, without resorting at
all to the use of poisonous drugs, antitoxins and surgical
operations.
For many years before the terrible after-effects of X-Ray treatment,
of extirpation of the ovaries, the womb, and of other vital organs,
became so patent that the physicians of the regular school could not
ignore them any longer, Nature Cure physicians had strongly warned
against these unnatural practices, and called attention to their
destructive after-effects.
As far back as ten years ago, when the X-Rays were in high favor for
the treatment of cancer, lupus, and other diseases, I warned against
the use of these rays, claiming that their vibratory velocity was
too high and powerful, and therefore destructive to the tissues of
the human body. Since the failure of the X-Rays and the discovery of
Radio-activity, the rays and emanations of radium and other
radio-active substances are widely advertised and exploited as
therapeutic agents, but these rays also are far beyond the vibratory
ranges of the physical body in velocity and power. Therefore, it
remains to be seen whether their injurious by and after-effects do
not out-weigh in the long run their beneficial effects.
The destructive action of these high power rays, as well as of
inorganic minerals, is very slow and insidious, manifesting only in
the course of many years. This new field of therapeutics, therefore,
has not yet passed the stage of dangerous experimentation.
Inorganic minerals prove injurious and destructive to the tissues of
the human body because they are too slow in vibratory velocity, and
too coarse in molecular structure.
It is the intent and purpose of this volume to warn against the
exploitation of destructive combative methods to the neglect of
preventive constructive and conservative methods. If these teachings
contribute something toward this end they will fulfil their mission.
The Author
Chicago, Nov., 1913.
INTRODUCTION
It was the following letter from Mr. William Louden to the editor of
~"Health Culture"~ which prompted the author to issue the ~"Nature
Cure Magazine"~ (published from November, 1907, to October, 1909).
In the series of books of which this is the first volume, he will
endeavor to collect and systematize all his former writings in the~
"Nature Cure Magazine," "Health Culture," "Life and Action,"~ the
~"Naturopath,"~ the ~"Volksrath,"~ and other publications, and to
amplify these by new material obtained through further research and
wider experience.
Mr. Albert Turner,
Editor of ~"Health Culture."~
DEAR SIR - I write to ask what you consider the best book or pamphlet
to put into the hands of people generally, in regard to the
preservation of health. I know ther e are a number of very excellent
publications, but as a rule they deal with certain details or phases
of the question, and do not begin with the great underlying
principles in such a way as to attract and hold the attention of the
masses. One advocates one plan, and another an entirely different,
and sometimes a directly opposite plan - such as uncooked vs.
thoroughly cooked food; a strictly vegetarian diet, and mental
culture in place of attention to either, etc. Such a state of
affairs makes it confusing to average people and gets them to
believe that health reformers are all at sea, and what is good for
one is not good for another, or, in common language, "what is one
man's meat is another's poison."
Now, I know it is natural, and doubtless best, that there should be
a difference of opinion on any question, but at the same time, if
any movement is to be crowned with great success, there should be
some underlying principles upon which all should agree, and these
should be pressed to the forefront, so as to attract and hold the
attention of the people, in place of the divergent details upon
which they disagree. If these fundamental laws and principles are
thoroughly studied and well defined, it may be found that they would
explain the discrepancies between the different theories, and that
under certain conditions, one plan is best, and that under different
conditions another plan is more applicable, etc. The pushing of
these fundamental principles to the front would also tend to correct
errors into which the different theorists have fallen, and would
certainly tend to make the different theories more homogeneous and
more easily understood by people in general, than at present.
In my opinion, the general fundamental principles of life and health
are what people need to understand more than anything else. Without
this, most of the details will be meaningless or at least confusing
dogmas. I don't mean by these fundamental principles the details of
anatomy, or, for that matter, the details of anything else, but the
general rules governing life and death, so that people may know
which way they, are tending, and may understand the many illusions
with which life and death, as well as all else in nature are beset.
Yours truly,
WILLIAM LOUDEN
Louden Mfg. Co.,
Fairfield, Iowa.
The present volume and others of the "Nature Cure Series" which are
to follow are an attempt to answer Mr. Louden's inquiry and to
formulate and elucidate the fundamental laws of health, disease and
cure for which he and many others have been vainly seeking. Who
among you at some time or another, has not thought and felt like Mr.
Louden and in doubt and perplexity voiced Pilate's query,
What Is Truth?
The exact information and rational method of teaching which Mr.
Louden is seeking, has heretofore been wanting in health-culture
literature.
Many, indeed, stand ready and willing to show the way to physical,
mental and moral perfection. Hundreds, yes, thousands, of different
cults, isms, teachers, books and periodicals treat of these
subjects, but their teachings are so manifold, so contradictory and
confusing, that one becomes bewildered amid the ever increasing
testimony. As is often the case in the study of complicated
subjects, the more one reads and the more one hears, the less one
knows. I believe that no one has described more strikingly this
state of general perplexity than Mr. Louden in his excellent letter.
Nevertheless, these simple fundamental laws and principles really
exist. They must exist, because everything in Nature, including the
processes of health, of disease and cure, of birth, of life and
death, are subject to law and order.
Allopathy, or Old School Medical Science, admits that it does not
know these fundamental principles; that it reasons, not from
underlying causes, but from external symptoms and personal
experiences. It is, therefore, self-confessedly full of doubts,
errors and confusion; in short, empirical - and necessarily, a
failure.
Many teachers of Nature Cure, Hygiene and Health cults have stumbled
accidentally upon some of the natural laws and true methods of
healing, but have failed to grasp and to formulate the broad
underlying principles. For this reason they are often partly right
and partly wrong and very apt to overdo certain methods to the
neglect of others just as effective and essential, or even more so.
I shall endeavor in these volumes to formulate and elucidate some of
the fundamental laws and principles underlying the phenomena of life
and death, health, disease and cure, and shall try to ascertain in
the light of these laws how much of truth and how much of error, how
much of usefulness and how much of harmfulness there may be
contained in the various theories and systems of living and of
healing.
Nature Owe an Exact Science
One of the reasons why Nature Cure is not more popular with the
medical profession and the public is that it is too simple. The
average mind is more impressed by the involved and mysterious than
by the simple and common-sense.
However, it remains a fact that "exact science" reduces complexity
and confusion to simplicity and clearness. Science becomes exact
science only when the underlying laws which correlate and unify its
scattered facts and theories have been discovered.
These simple laws rightly understood and applied will do for medical
science what the law of gravitation has done for physics and
astronomy, and what the laws of chemical affinity have done for
chemistry, they will place medical science in the ranks of exact
sciences. The understanding and proper application of these truths
will explain every fact and phenomenon in the processes of health,
disease and cure, and will enable the student to reason from simple,
natural laws and principles to their logical effects. The "Regular"
school of medicine, so far, has endeavored to build a medical
science on the observation of "effects" and "experiences," but
since one fundamental law of nature may produce a million seemingly
differing effects it becomes self-evident that it is utterly
impossible to found an exact science on such uncertain and
conflicting evidence.
The primary laws and principles once understood, it becomes easy to
reason from and to explain through them, the various phenomena which
they produce. Herein lie the merit and achievement of the Nature
Cure philosophy.
THE UPAS TREE OF DISEASE
EVIL IS NOT AN ACCIDENT, NOT AN ARBITRARY PUNISHMENT, NOT ALWAYS AN
"ERROR OF MORTAL MIND." IT IS THE NATURAL AND INEVITABLE RESULT OF
VIOLATIONS OF NATURE'S LAWS. IT IS INSTRUCTIVE AND CORRECTIVE IN
PURPOSE, AND WILL REMAIN WITH US ONLY AS LONG AS WE NEED ITS
SALUTARY LESSONS.
Chapter I
What ~Is~ Nature Cure?
It is vastly more than a system of curing aches and pains; it is a
complete revolution in the art and science of living. It is the
practical realization and application of all that is good in natural
science, philosophy and religion. Like many another world-wide
revolution and reformation, it had its inception in Germany, the
land of thinkers and philosophers.
About seventy years ago this greatest and most beneficent of
reformation movements was inaugurated by Priessnitz in Grafenberg, a
small village in the Silesian mountains. The originator of Nature
Cure was a simple farmer, but he had a natural genius for the art of
healing.
His pharmacopeia consisted not in poisonous pills and potions but in
plenty of exercise, fresh mountain air, water treatments in the
cool, sparkling brooks, and simple, wholesome country fare,
consisting largely of black bread, vegetables, and milk fresh from
cows fed on nutritious mountain grasses.
The results accomplished by these simple means were wonderful.
Before he died, a large sanitarium, filled with patients from all
over the world and from all stations of life, had grown up around
his forest home.
Among those who made the pilgrimage to Grafenberg to become patients
and students of this genial healer, the simple-minded
farmer-physician, were wealthy merchants, princes and doctors from
all parts of the world.
Rapidly the idea of drugless healing spread over Germany and over
the civilized world. In the Fatherland, Hahn the apothecary, Kuhne
the weaver, Rikli the manufacturer, Father Kneipp the priest,
Lahmann the doctor, and Turnvater Jahn, the founder of physical
culture, became enthusiastic pupils and followers of Priessnitz.
Each one of these men enlarged and enriched some special field of
the great realm of natural healing. Some elaborated the water cure
and natural dietetics, others invented various systems of
manipulative treatment, earth, air and light cures, magnetic
healing, mental therapeutics, curative gymnastics, etc., etc. Von
Peckzely added the Diagnosis from the Eye, which reveals not only
the innermost secrets of the human organism, but also Nature's ways
and means of cure, and the changes for better or for worse
continually occurring in the body.
In this country, Dr. Trall of New York, Dr. Jackson of Danville, Dr.
Kellogg of Battle Creek, and others caught the infection and crossed
the ocean to become students of Priessnitz. The achievements of
these men in their respective fields of endeavor will stand as
enduring monuments to the eternal truths revealed by the genius of
Nature Cure.
Quimby, the itinerant spiritualist and healer, became successful and
renowned by the application of the natural methods of cure. At first
his favorite methods were water, massage, magnetic and mental
treatment. Gradually he concentrated his efforts on metaphysical
methods of cure, and before he died, he evolved a complete system of
magnetic and mental therapeutics.
Quimby's teachings and methods were adopted by Mrs. Eddy, his most
enthusiastic pupil, and by her elaborated into Christian Science,
the latest and most successful of modern mental-healing cults.
Dr. Still of Kirksville, Missouri, made a valuable addition to
natural methods of treatment by the invention of Osteopathy, a
system of scientific manipulation of the bony structures, nerves and
nerve centers, muscles and ligaments. A later development of
manipulative science is Chiropractic, originated by Dr. Palmer of
Davenport, Iowa. Thus the simple pioneers of German Nature Cure,
every one of them gifted by Nature with the instinct and genius of
the true healer, who is born, not made, laid the foundation for the
worldwide modern healthculture movement.
They were not blinded or confused by the conflicting theories of
books and authorities, or by the action of a thousand different
drugs on a legion of different symptoms, but applied common-sense
reasoning to the solution of the problems of health, disease and
cure.
They went for inspiration to field and forest rather than to the
murky atmosphere of the dissecting and vivisection rooms. They
studied the whole and not only the parts, causes as well as effects
and symptoms. Realizing that man had lost his natural instinct and
strayed far from Nature's ways, they studied and imitated the
natural habits of the animal creation rather than the confusing
doctrines of the schools.
Thus they proclaimed the "return to Nature" and the "new gospel of
health," which are destined to free humanity from the destructive
influences of alcoholism, red meat overeating, the dope and tobacco
habit, and of drug poisoning, vaccination, surgical mutilation,
vivisection and a thousand other abuses practiced in the name of
science.
When parents learn how to create children in accord with natural
law, how to mold their bodies and their characters into harmony and
beauty before the new life sees the light of day, when they learn to
rear their offspring in health of body and purity of mind in harmony
with the laws of their being, then we shall have true types of
beautiful manhood and womanhood, then children will no longer be a
curse and a burden to themselves and to those who bring them into
the world or to society at large.
These thoughts are not the mere dreams of a visionary. When we see
the wonderful changes wrought in a human being by a few months or
years of rational living and treatment, it seems not impossible or
improbable that these ideals may be realized within a few
generations.
Children thus born and reared in harmony with the law will be the
future masters of the earth. They will need neither gold nor
influence to win in the race of life - their innate powers of body and
soul will make them victors over every circumstance. The offspring
of alcoholism, drug poisoning and sexual perversity will cut but
sorry figures in comparison with the manhood and womanhood of a true
and noble aristocracy of health.
Chapter II
Catechism of Nature Cure
The philosophy of Nature Cure is based on sciences dealing with
newly discovered or rediscovered natural laws and principles, and
with their application to the phenomena of life and death, health,
disease and cure.
Every new science embodying new modes of thought requires exact
modes of expression and new definitions of already well-known words
and phrases.
Therefore, we have endeavored to define, as precisely as possible,
certain words and phrases which convey meanings and ideas peculiar
to the teachings of Nature Cure.
The student of Nature Cure and kindred subjects will do well to
study these definitions and formulated principles closely, as they
contain the pith and marrow of our philosophy and greatly facilitate
its understanding.
(1) What Is Nature Cure?
Nature Cure is a system of building the entire being in harmony with
the constructive principle in Nature on the physical, mental, moral
and spiritual planes of being.
(2) What Is the Constructive Principle in Nature?
The constructive principle in Nature is that principle which builds
up, improves and repairs, which always makes for the perfect type,
whose activity in Nature is designated as evolutionary and
constructive and which is opposed to the destructive principle in
Nature
(3) What Is the Destructive Principle in Nature?
The destructive principle in Nature is that principle which
disintegrates and destroys existing forms and types, and whose
activity in Nature is designated as devolutionary and destructive.
(4) What Is Normal or Natural?
That is normal or natural which is in harmonic relation with the
life purposes of the individual and the constructive principle in
Nature.
(5) What Is Health?
Health is normal and harmonious vibration of the elements and forces
composing the human entity on the physical, mental, moral and
spiritual planes of being, in conformity with the constructive
principle of Nature applied to individual life.
(6) What Is Disease?
Disease is abnormal or inharmonious vibration of the elements and
forces composing the human entity on one or more planes of being, in
conformity with the destructive principle of Nature applied to
individual life.
(7) What Is the Primary Cause of Disease?
The primary cause of disease, barring accidental or surgical injury
to the human organism and surroundings hostile to human life, is
violation of Nature's Laws.
(8) What Is the Effect of Violation of Nature's Laws on the Physical
Human Organism?
The effect of violation of Nature's Laws on the physical human
organism are:
Lowered vitality. Abnormal composition of blood and lymph.
Accumulation of waste matter, morbid materials and poisons.
These conditions are identical with disease, because they tend to
lower, hinder or inhibit normal function (harmonious vibration) and
because they engender and promote destruction of living tissues.
(9) What Is Acute Disease?
What is commonly called acute disease is in reality the result of
Nature's efforts to eliminate from the organism waste matter,
foreign matter and poisons, and to repair injury to living tissues.
In other words, every so-called acute disease is the result of a
cleansing and healing effort of Nature. The real disease is lowered
vitality, abnormal composition of the vital fluids (blood and lymph)
and the resulting accumulation of waste materials and poisons.
(10) What Is Chronic Disease?
Chronic disease is a condition of the organism in which lowered
vibration (lowered vitality), due to the accumulation of waste
matter and poisons, with the consequent destruction of vital parts
and organs, has progressed to such an extent that Nature's
constructive and healing forces are no longer able to react against
the disease conditions by acute corrective efforts (healing crises).
Chronic disease is a condition of the organismin which the morbid
encumbrances have gained the ascendancy and prevent acute reaction
(healing crises) on the part of the constructive forces of Nature.
Chronic disease is the inability of the organism to react by acute
efforts or healing crises against constitutional disease conditions.
(11) What Is a Healing Crisis?
A healing crisis is an acute reaction, resulting from the ascendancy
of Nature's healing forces over disease conditions. Its tendency is
toward recovery, and it is, therefore, in conformity with Nature's
constructive principle.
(12) Are All Acute Reactions Healing Crises?
No, there are healing crises and disease crises.
(13) What Is a Disease Crisis?
A disease crisis is an acute reaction resulting from the ascendancy
of disease conditions over the healing forces of the organism. Its
tendency is toward fatal termination, and it is, therefore, in
conformity with Nature's destructive principle
(14) What Is Cure?
Cure is the readjustment of the human organism from abnormal to
normal conditions and functions.
(15) What Methods of Cure Are in Conformity with the Constructive
Principle in Nature?
Those methods which:
Establish normal surroundings and natural habits of life in accord
with Nature's Laws. Economize vital force. Build up the blood on a
natural basis, that is, supply the blood with its natural
constituents in right proportions. Promote the elimination of waste
matter and poisons without in any way injuring the human body.
Arouse the individual in the highest possible degree to the
consciousness of personal accountability and the necessity of
intelligent personal effort and self-help.
(16) Are Medicines in Conformity with the Constructive Principle in
Nature?
Medicines are in conformity with the constructive principle in
Nature insofar as they, in themselves, are not injurious and
destructive to the human organism and insofar as they act as tissue
foods and promote the neutralization and elimination of morbid
matter and poisons.
(17) Are Poisonous Drugs and Promiscuous Surgical Operations in
Conformity with the Constructive Principle in Nature?
Poisonous drugs and promiscuous operations are not usually in
conformity with the constructive principle in Nature, because:
They suppress acute diseases or reactions (crises), the cleaning and
healing efforts of Nature. They are in themselves harmful and
destructive to human life. Such treatment fosters the belief that
drugs and surgical operations can be substituted for obedience to
Nature's Laws and for personal effort and self-help.
(18) Is Metaphysical Healing in Conformity with the Constructive
Principle in Nature?
Metaphysical systems of healing are in conformity with the
constructive principle in Nature insofar as:
They do not interfere with or suppress Nature's healing efforts.
They awaken hope and confidence (therapeutic faith) and increase the
inflow of vital force into the organism.
They are not in conformity with the constructive principle in Nature
in so far as:
They fail to assist Nature's healing efforts. They ignore, obscure
and deny the laws of Nature and defy the dictates of reason and
common sense. They substitute, in the treatment of disease, a blind,
dogmatic belief in the wonder-working power of metaphysical formulas
and prayer for intelligent cooperation with Nature's constructive
forces for personal effort and self-help. They weaken the
consciousness of personal responsibility.
(19) Is Nature Cure in Conformity with the Constructive Principle in
Nature?
Nature Cure is in conformity with the constructive principle in
Nature because:
It teaches that the primary cause of weakness and disease is
disobedience to the laws of Nature. It arouses the individual to the
study of natural laws and demonstrates the necessity of strict
compliance with these laws. It strengthens the consciousness of
personal responsibility of the individual for his own status of
health and for the hereditary conditions, traits and tendencies of
his off-spring. It encourages personal effort and self-help. It
adapts surroundings and habits of life to natural laws. It assists
Nature's cleansing and healing efforts by simple natural means and
methods of treatment which are in no wise harmful or destructive to
health and life, and which are within the reach of everyone.
(20) What Are the Natural Methods of Living and of Treatment?
Return to Nature by the regulation of eating, drinking, breathing,
bathing, dressing, working, resting, thinking, the moral life,
sexual and social activities, etc., on a normal and natural basis.
Elementary remedies, such as water, air, light, earth cures,
magnetism, electricity, etc. Chemical remedies, such as scientific
food selection and combination, specific nutritional augmentation
with natural food concentrates, homeopathic medicines, simple herb
extracts and the vitochemical remedies. Mechanical remedies, such as
corrective gymnastics, massage, magnetic treatment, chiropractic or
osteopathic manipulation and, when indicated, surgery. Mental and
spiritual remedies, such as scientific relaxation, normal
suggestion, constructive thought, the prayer of faith, etc.
Chapter III
What Is Life?
In our study of the cause and character of disease we must endeavor
to begin at the beginning, and that is with LIFE itself, for the
processes of health, disease and cure are manifestations of that
which we call life, vitality, life elements, etc.
While endeavoring to fathom the mystery of life we soon realize,
however, that we are dealing with an ultimate which no human mind is
capable of solving or explaining. We can study and understand life
only in its manifestations, not in its origin and real essence.
There are two prevalent, but widely differing, conceptions of the
nature of life or vital force: the material and the vital.
The former looks upon life or vital force with all its physical,
mental and psychical phenomena as manifestations of the electric,
magnetic and chemical activities of the physical-material elements
composing the human organism. From this viewpoint, life is a sort of
spontaneous combustion, or, as one scientist expressed it, a
succession of fermentations.
This materialistic conception of life, however, has already become
obsolete among the more advanced biologists as a result of the
wonderful discoveries of modern science, which are fast bridging the
chasm between the material and the spiritual realms of being.
But medical science, as taught in the regular schools, is still
dominated by the old, crude, mechanical conception of vital force
and this, as we shall see, accounts for some of its gravest errors
of theory and of practice.
The vital conception of life, on the other hand, regards it as the
primary force of all forces, coming from the great central source of
all power.
This force, which permeates, heats and animates the entire created
universe, is the expression of the divine will, the "logos," the
"word" of the great creative intelligence. It is this divine energy
which sets in motion the whirls in the ether, the electric
corpuscles and ions that make up the different atoms and elements of
matter.
These corpuscles and ions are positive and negative forms of
electricity. Electricity is a form of energy. It is intelligent
energy; otherwise it could not move with that same wonderful
precision in the electrons of the atoms as in the suns and planets
of the sidereal universe.
This intelligent energy can have but one source: the will and the
intelligence of the Creator; as Swedenborg expresses it, "the great
central sun of the universe."
If this supreme intelligence should withdraw its energy, the
electrical charges (forms of energy) and with it the atoms,
elements, and the entire material universe would disappear in the
flash of a moment.
From this it appears that crude matter, instead of being the source
of life and of all its complicated mental and spiritual phenomena
(which assumption, on the face of it, is absurd), is only an
expression of the Life Force, itself a manifestation of the great
creative intelligence which some call God, others Nature, the
Oversoul, Brahma, Prana, etc., each one according to his best
understanding.
It is this supreme power and intelligence, acting in and through
every atom, molecule and cell in the human body, which is the true
healer, the vis medicatrix nature, which always endeavors to
repair, to heal and to restore the perfect type. All that the
physician can do is to remove obstructions and to establish normal
conditions within and around the patient, so that the healer within
can do his work to the best advantage.
Here the Christian Scientist will say: "That is exactly what we
claim. All is God, all is mind! There is no matter! Our attitude
toward disease is based on these facts."
Well, what of it, Brother Scientist? Suppose, in the final analysis,
matter is nothing but vibration, an expression of Divine Mind and
Will. That, for all practical purposes, does not justify me to deny
and to ignore its reality. Because I have an "all-mind" body, is it
advisable for me to place myself in the way of an "all-mind"
locomotive moving at the rate of sixty miles an hour?
The question is not what matter is in the final analysis, but how
matter affects us. We have to take it and treat it as we find it. We
must be as obedient to the laws of matter as to those of the higher
planes of being.
Life Is Vibratory
In the final analysis, all things in Nature, from a fleeti g thought
or emotion to the hardest piece of diamond or platinum, are modes of
motion or vibration. A few years ago physical science assumed that
an atom was the smallest imaginable part of a given element of
matter; that although infinitesimally small, it still represented
solid matter. Now, in the light of better evidence, we have good
reason to believe that there is no such thing as solid matter: that
every atom is made up of charges of negative and positive
electricity acting in and upon an omnipresent ether; that the
difference between an atom of iron and of hydrogen or any other
element consists solely in the number of electrical charges or
corpuscles it contains, and on the velocity with which these vibrate
around one another.
Thus the atom, which was thought to be the ultimate particle of
solid matter, is found to be a little universe in itself in which
corpuscles of electricity rotate or vibrate around one another like
the suns and planets in the sidereal universe. This explains what we
mean when we say life and matter are vibratory.
As early as 1863 John Newlands discovered that when he arranged the
elements of matter in the order of their atomic weight, they
displayed the same relationship to one another as do the tones in
the musical scale. Thus modern chemistry demonstrates the verity of
the music of the spheres - another visionary concept of ancient
mysticism. The individual atoms in themselves, as well as all the
atoms of matter in their relationship to one another, are
constructed and arranged in exact correspondence with the laws of
harmony. Therefore the entire sidereal universe is built on the laws
of music.
That which is orderly, lawful, good, beautiful, natural, healthy,
vibrates in unison with the harmonics of this great "Diapason of
Nature"; in other words, it is in alignment with the constructive
principle in Nature.
That which is disorderly, abnormal, ugly, unnatural, unhealthy,
vibrates in discord with Nature's harmonics. It is in alignment with
the destructive principle in Nature.
What we call "Inanimate Nature" is beautiful and orderly because it
plays in tune with the score of the Symphony of Life. Man alone can
play out of tune. This is his privilege, if he so chooses, by virtue
of his freedom of choice and action.
We can now better understand the definitions of health and of
disease, given in Chapter Two, "Catechism of Nature Cure" as
follows:
"Health is normal and harmonious vibration of the elements and
forces composing the human entity on the physical, mental, moral and
spiritual planes of being, in conformity with the constructive
principle of Nature applied to individual life."
"Disease is abnormal or inharmonious vibration of the elements and
forces composing the human entity on one or more planes of being, in
conformity with the destructive principle of Nature applied to
individual life."
The question naturally arising here is, "Normal or abnormal
vibration with what?" The answer is that the vibratory conditions of
the organism must be in harmony with Nature's established harmonic
relations in the physical, mental, moral, spiritual and psychical
realms of human life and action.
What Is an Established Harmonic Relation?
|