Читать книгу Edgar Cayce on Healing Foods - William A. McGarey M.D. - Страница 11

Good nutrition—a constructive diet that we might follow—becomes for many of us the open door to a new awareness, the beginning of a major change in consciousness.

Simply recognizing that the body has the ability to create within us life-giving substances out of those foods we put into our mouths is a revelation. For me it was. And that revelation, although slow in coming, brought me face-to-face with a concept I had read in the Bible and heard repeated literally hundreds of times: The body is indeed “the temple of the Living God.”

As I came to the point of recognizing that the adoption of good dietary habits helped me in fashioning my own temple, I realized that this would give me insights into my spiritual reality and would open the door to those changes that bring more and greater spiritual growth.

As a child, my concern was not the kind of food I should or could eat, but rather—at least during those depression years—would there be food to eat? One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a trip I took in Wellsville, Ohio, me pulling my little wagon along with my father down the back alleys to the 12th Street storehouse where food was being given out to those who were in need. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew that we stood in line for a long time, until Dad signed some papers and got a supply of food.

My mother had died in 1927, two years before the stock market crash that launched the Great Depression. Then Dad lost his job when the steel mill closed. He had to feed my two brothers and me, as well as himself, with no wages coming in. So we ate whatever we could get. If it didn’t build our health, at least we didn’t starve.

During my teens, I recall celebrating my team’s baseball victory with Pepsi-Colas—and I could down the entire bottle on occasion without stopping, not the best thing for my health. It seems that the human body has a tremendous ability to survive and stay relatively healthy under the most adverse circumstances. My teeth suffered, however, requiring some thirty fillings when I was just fifteen.

Today, our six grown children have a minimum of fillings. I would guess that together they have not totaled in their lives the number of fillings I had done that year when I was in my midteens. Their diet, of course, has been totally different. And that has made a great difference, not only in their teeth but in their overall health.

Through my final years of high school and college, I didn’t think about my diet. It was only when I got into medical school that the subject of vitamins became part of my studies. Those years (1943-47) were discovery years in the field of vitamins, but their use in medicine was almost nonexistent.

The subject fascinated me, however. I simplified the problem somewhat, figuring that if (1) the lack of vitamins can cause scurvy and other recognized diseases, then (2) the use of vitamins must relieve a variety of diseases where vitamins might be in inadequate supply.

It seemed logical to me at that point in my medical education that a human body receiving an adequate supply of vitamins would very naturally be in a better state of health than one in which the vitamins were lacking.

Surprisingly, this concept was not particularly acceptable among the majority of my professors or fellow students. It was apparent that the disease—rather than the nutritional status of the patient—was the focus of the studies, laboratory tests, X-rays, medical histories, and examinations. My interest, then, remained an interest only, and I had little chance to try out my ideas, except on myself. Vitamins did, however, enhance my state of health—more energy, fewer colds. I simply felt better. I still didn’t know too much about nutrition or diets, but I had made the first step.

The attitude taken by medical schools in those days (which to a great extent still exists) was that nutrition had little, if any, importance, that the mind and the emotions had no direct, or even indirect effect on the physical body; that prayer was in no manner associated with the health of the body or with the correction of disease; and that meditation (“What’s that?”) would only be found in some of those strange Eastern religions. In my years at the University of Cincinnati, the mention of a Divine Being or God came about only in the profanity of the professors, residents, interns, and students. And, as for the subject of reincarnation, well, that wasn’t even considered.

While there was little development toward an understanding of good nutrition during those days of my formal medical training, ideas about food gradually came into focus during the early years of my practice in the field of what is now called family medicine. From a state of what I call unawareness, I moved step-by-step into a sometimes painful awakening.

A woman patient of mine in Wellsville, where I began my practice of medicine, was bedfast and not doing well due to an illness that was not readily diagnosable. From my interest in vitamins and the availability of injectable vitamin B-12, I gave this lady three consecutive daily injections of B-12. She was not only out of bed, but was moving around normally once again in a matter of just a few days.

Some years later, when I spent two years as a flight surgeon in the Air Force, I had many an argument with another medical officer who was trained in internal medicine. He could not see the benefit of B-12 for anything except pernicious anemia. Perhaps it was because he was so immersed in looking at the disease—was it treatable?—rather than the idea that the patient might be deficient in that particular vitamin without necessarily suffering from pernicious anemia. Early in my experience in the field of medicine, this reluctance to understand the importance of vitamins was the norm. In later years, I have found that there is a change coming about, slow as it seems in making its appearance.

Things had not improved to any extent in the late fifties or early sixties. I brought a case before a panel of physicians who were looking at problems in the Medicare coverage. The system had refused to pay for injectable vitamins for a patient who had a textbook case of vitamin deficiency and did not respond to oral dosages. I even took the textbook down to the meeting to show the doctors. They still could not understand what to me was obvious: The patient had not responded to oral vitamin therapy and needed (and responded to) the injectable form.

I tried to use what knowledge I had of nutrition with our family. I will never forget the picture of our four-year-old Annie standing on the street near the ice-cream wagon, yelling so that everyone would hear her, “Everyone in the whole world gets ice cream except the McGareys!”

Nutrition was also important in our medical practice. We came across the Koch cancer therapy not long after we opened our offices. Dr. William Koch had developed a substance he described as an oxidation catalyst. Although he had many adherents, Koch was eventually discredited by the established authorities in his attempts to treat cancer. One thing stood out among all other factors, however, in the regimen of therapy he prescribed. Eat a very good diet, no fried foods, lots of greens, don’t cook with aluminum, drink lots of water—advice Edgar Cayce also put forth in his readings.

We adopted some of those ideas, although at that time we had no idea why such a diet would influence the course of a disease like cancer. But it did emphasize to me that it was important for all of us to adopt a diet that had in it all that the body needs. We wanted to keep ourselves and our patients from becoming deficient in the supply of body nutrients—and vitamins are some of those nutrients.

And I found that we can truly change our eating habits. If we dislike something, we can—with practice and the right attitude—learn to like it. I proved this for myself while in the Air Force. At the Officers’ Club they served shrimp as hors d’oeuvres nearly every evening. I had never in my life even faintly liked shrimp. But I saw these people consuming shrimp like it was going out of style. I finally realized I must be missing something. So I decided to make a sincere effort to eat some shrimp and taste it very carefully, without my former prejudice. After just a few boiled shrimp taken gingerly, I was convinced, then ate more and more, and I found that I could overcome a distaste for certain foods if I tried.

Some years ago a woman patient of ours who had scleroderma went on a very clearly defined diet, eliminating pork products, among others. Some three years after that, free of the scleroderma, she visited her mother, who wanted to know, “What can you eat now?” The answer came back, “I can eat anything I like!” Her mother served ham that night, and was rebuffed when the woman didn’t eat any. “But you said you could eat anything you like!” The answer came back, “That’s right, but now I don’t like ham!”

It was after our family relocated and established our base in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1955 that we learned of Edgar Cayce. A whole new world opened for me. Not only did Cayce teach me about diet and nutrition, but he also introduced me to the concept of reincarnation. Understanding that concept, I no longer find it strange to realize that I am a continuing spiritual being moving through time and space, appearing here at this time, but having had lifetimes in the past that helped to create attitudes and emotional reactions that helped chart the course of life I am taking this time around.

This helped me look at the whole human being as the center of my attention as I practiced medicine, and it moved me away from the concept of being only a specialist in the diseases that attack the body. This represented a drastic change in my thinking. Care for the body properly—and the body becomes normal. A normal body has no diseases. So why not direct our efforts to normalizing the body? It fascinated me as I realized that I had rediscovered an ancient truth that had once been mine in previous incarnations.

Late in the 1950s, we had adopted the practice of using only whole wheat bread. A friend had told us about the only place he knew where real whole wheat bread was available. Stoll’s Bakery was run by Mormons, who years ago recognized the value of whole wheat over the white, degerminated flour. It became a place we visited weekly. We would buy twelve to sixteen loaves to freeze and use for our growing family of six. In all of metropolitan Phoenix, this was the only place where we could find good, wholesome, naturally prepared whole grain bread.

At that point we took up one of our minor crusades—to make whole wheat bread more available for our patients and others throughout the Valley of the Sun. Each of our patients was given the same instructions: “Tell the manager or the check-out person at the grocery store you go to that you want some good whole wheat bread. And, if they don’t supply it for you, that you’ll go to another store.” Most store managers want to meet the desires of their customers, so gradually it happened.

Much has changed during the intervening years. Health food stores have flourished. Even the supermarkets put health foods on their shelves, provide good whole wheat bread, and sometimes have special health food sections.

More important than that, however, to me in my own practice of medicine, has been the growth of my own understanding of the nature of the human body—the variety of ways in which it works, which I learned from the Edgar Cayce readings.

I realized from the Edgar Cayce readings, for instance, that biochemically the body must have a stable acid-alkaline balance in all the body tissues, but most importantly in the bloodstream, the lymphatic system, the mouth, the stomach, the small and large intestines, the urinary tract, the vagina, and portions of the lower bowel. All of these locations carry slightly different levels of pH (hydrogen-ion concentration). Altering that acidity or alkalinity in any significant manner can spell disease. Even minor changes can bring about a state of disease, of feeling not just right—the beginning of an illness. Restful sleep or exercise can make the body more alkaline, while worry makes it more acid.

Food is by far the most important factor in maintaining an acid-alkaline balance in the human body, depending on the food’s acid or alkaline ash content. This was determined years ago. And the acidity or alkalinity manifests itself in the various fluids and tissues of the body, depending on how well balanced the body is in its state of health.

Thus, the food that we eat really gives us food for thought, doesn’t it?

The American Cancer Society had at one time a film available to loan entitled The Embattled Cell. Part of the research it portrays is the manner in which lymphocytes (white blood cells) move through the tissues of the body, attacking cancer cells and killing them. It also shows lymphocytes that have obviously been done in by the cancer cells. A war is constantly going on inside the body between the invaders and the defenders of the body.

It stretched our minds to realize that the awareness of the lymphocytes—as they sought out and destroyed the cancer cells—implied that all of the cells of our body must have their own type of consciousness, their own job to do in the physiology of the body.

Lymphocytes function normally in the slightly alkaline medium of the lymphatic stream. When the lymph becomes more acid, the lymphocytes cannot function normally. Thus they are liable to lose the battle. Much can be theorized about the effect of the acid-alkaline balance in the body regarding health and disease, but it has not been thoroughly researched, so there is no proof. A person does not need scientific proof, however, when good diet works astonishing changes in his or her own body.

As we studied what Edgar Cayce said about diet, we developed what we called a “Basic Diet”—one that will keep a person well adjusted as far as food is concerned. This is included later in the book.

As the years gave us more experience and as we worked with the concepts of physiology found in the Cayce material, we adopted what might be called a physiological approach to therapy. We found that the physiology of the body can be altered to move it toward more normal functioning.

It led us into a multilevel approach to diagnosis and treatment. We began to understand that poor absorption of foods in the upper intestinal tract does not stand by itself as a syndrome. Rather, other so-called “diseases” can arise as a result of the deficiency in food substances created by the malabsorption. The blood-forming organs may cease to function up to par, for instance, and the individual becomes anemic. A variety of secondary problems can arise from a lack of proper absorption or assimilation. To correct such conditions may require treatment of the intestinal tract, improvement of the diet, restoration of a better acid-alkaline balance, and changes in attitudes and emotional patterns—in short, the adoption of a new, more health-producing lifestyle.

Assimilation is the process that takes food through a multitude of steps. It begins with its entry into the mouth and its breakdown with the enzymes in the saliva. Then the food goes through the stomach and small intestine, where it is acted upon by the acids and enzymes and bile so that it is finally absorbed by the lining of the intestinal tract into the capillaries or the lymphatic stream. Finally it is taken by the lymphatics into the bloodstream, or more directly by the hepatic circulation through the liver, where it might undergo further change in preparation for utilization by the cells of the body where rebuilding of tissue can come about.

Then, when cells die in the metabolic process going on within the body, these remnants must be eliminated through the four eliminatory channels of the body—the liver/intestinal tract, the kidneys, the lungs, and the skin. Keeping the assimilation and the elimination proper and balanced helps tremendously in maintaining health. Cayce said it in one reading like this:

. . . [if] the assimilations and the eliminations would be kept nearer normal in the human family, the days might be extended to whatever period as was so desired . . .

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But one great concept empowered me in my growing understanding of the body: the idea that the human body, if encouraged to return back to normal, will inevitably overcome any illness, if the right kind of aid is available and the patient is willing to continue applying those aids patiently, persistently, and consistently. The aids always include dietary adjustments and corrections. They nearly always include the use of the mind in changing attitudes and emotional patterns. But the goal is possible, if the directions are followed.

The first years of my practice expanded my medical school training into a variety of concepts—a horizontal kind of reaching out with my mind. In more recent years, Edgar Cayce has brought me into an understanding of the body—an in-depth vertical, spiritual study, which adds richness to exploring why we need to pay attention to the food we eat.

Much of what has been discussed here will be dealt with more extensively later on in the book, as we move first to an understanding of what the rules really are.