Reclaiming our health
I’m still very much inspired by the writing of Herbert Sheldon, who was part of the Hygiene movement, which promotes plant-based diets, fasting, and natural living (as shared in my previous post), mainly as it validates much of my observations through my practice over the years. Every cause has an effect and our living out of alignment with the nature of our organism, and nature, therefore, can generally lead to loss of wellness. This has certainly been my personal experience as well as the experience of many of my clients over the years.
As a Hygienist, Herbert takes a natural route to healing, he talks of drugs as poisons, and questions how people can possibly get well taking poisons, which would harm a well person, let alone a sick person. He is scathing of previous medical practices, many of which (he argues) have led to greater suffering and premature death, certainly not cure.
He writes: “The testimony of history is that man has long been sick, has long taken medical advice and swallowed the remedies of the medical profession and has grown sicker. This is the story of failure. Since men have come into a knowledge of Hygiene and have partially and imperfectly applied it to their lives, they have grown steadily better. How do medical men account for this improvement? We challenge them to do it on any hypothesis that does not expose the absurdity of their own practices. For this change in the lives of men there is a cause and we ask medical men to account for it on grounds that are satisfactory to themselves so that their confidence in drugs does not receive a rude shock.”
He tells us that one of the most trying problems for the Hygienist in dealing with the sick and especially chronic suffers, is they demand speedy recovery - “quick relief, even if only temporary, is what is so generally demanded. Indeed they are so determined to get relief that they will die to get it. It is generally true that the means of providing speedy results produce an aftermath of troubles of their own that are often worse than the troubles given to relieve. Certainly, they never, not in a single instance, nor in a single trouble, remove any of the causes that are producing and maintaining, even intensifying, the trouble”.
As he reminds us, “there is no instantaneous healing”. Herbert does not believe in miracles: “Disease, once induced, can be removed only by a return to obedience. The return to good health is no more sudden than was the evolution of the disease. All changes in nature from bad to good are slow-according to the law of growth and perfection of the thing considered. An organism is like a pear tree: which grows slowly, matures slowly and lasts a long time - heals slowly. This is so because the measure of change is ordinarily the law of growth - the process of healing being nothing more or less than the process of growth in special exercise”.
He is concerned about the effect of “drugging” as he calls it, and the impact this has on the chronic sufferers especially when their recuperative power is low and the organic damage is so extensive that often recovery is very slow.
Of course for him, prevention is key. This is certainly aligned with the Ayurvedic approach to life - living in such a way that disease is less likely to take root in the first place. As he writes, “‘Health by healthful living’ was the slogan of the early hygenists. This slogan stressed the fact that the prevention of health and the prevention of disease are identical processes and involve the proper use of the normal elements of living. One may build and maintain such a high state of health that no disease will evolve. Precisely in proportion to the individual’s neglect or disregard of there laws of his being will be his liability to evolve disease, and the deeper will be its evolution”.
He feels strongly that illness does not develop without cause. He argues that the medical plan for preventing disease is similar to its plan for curing disease and consists wholly of the use of ‘poisons’. He knows that there is a greater plan at work: “Any serious proposal of a program that is genuinely designed to prevent disease will be sure to meet with stubborn opposition from those who have a vested interest in disease. Prevention, if genuine, would put the disease treaters out of business. Without the sick man the entire medical industry would collapse; consequently, it becomes necessary that there shall always be a sick man”.
I have become increasingly aware of this over the years too. Obviously one always wants to see the best in people, but unfortunately sickness is an industry from which many people financially profiteer. Recognition of this has certainly prompted me to find alternative ways of establishing health and taking steps to heal, where needed and Ayurveda has helped enormously with this.
However we are up against it and Herbert stresses this too: “most people expect too much from their partial ways of life. They should not expect to escape the development of all disease, even if they comply with all the sound rules of dietetics. They should only expect less disease, for health does not rest upon right food only. To escape disease entirely, the organisation must be perfect, the environment must be equally so, and the total way of life must confirm with the laws of life in every particular. Polluted water, contiminated air, poisoned and processed food, and many other elements of present-day life render the escape of all illness impossible”.
One could be led to deep sadness on such points, as we witness the degradation of nature at the expense of consumerism and profit. But I always feel there is hope. For us living on Guernsey, we are blessed with super fresh air, we have a choice around the foods we eat, and we are lucky for hedge veg (as long as not covered in chemicals). We can spend time outside, by the sea - and our aura can be cleansed by this - and we have some space. But we are not immune, we have nuclear power on our doorstep, 5G joining us soon, and a whole heap of pesticides within our water system (if the rumours are to be believed), let alone a frantic pace of life, such is the reality of living on a financial centred island.
Herbert also questions our conditioning around health and around germs and viruses especially. He writes about epidemics: “In all epidemics, the enervated and toxemic are the first to develop the epidemic disease. When these have all developed the disease and either died or recovered, the epidemic ends and the profession knows no more about why it ended than why it originated”.
He continues: “Nothing in a man’s environment causes disease except as it reduces nerve energy, thus producing enervation, checking elimination and building toxaemia. The retained end products of carbohydrate and protein decomposition in the intestines are also prolific sources of poisoning. When the blood becomes supersaturated with cell waste, a safety valve must be opened to relieve it of pent-up toxin. This safety valve is called disease”.
Even more interestingly he writes: “The modern substitute for the evil spirit theory of disease is the evil germ theory. Instead of having the body invaded by demons, today it is invaded by germs. When Pasteur gave the profession the germ theory, it was still wearing the three-cornered panties that Hippocrates had placed on it almost 2,500 years previous. The profession accepted Pasteur’s theory with avidity and today explains, not only epidemics, but many non-epidemic diseases by recourse to this theory. Historically, bacteriology sprang from the limbo of obsession and exorcism and to this limbo it should again be relegated. Indeed were it not for the fact that vast and exceedingly powerful industries are founded upon the hypothesis that germs are the causes of disease, the whole science of bacteriology, as this relates to disease, would be discarded tomorrow. The owners of these industries will not stand idly by and watch, without moving heaven and earth to prevent the destruction of their highly lucrative source of income.”
Interestingly, he mentions that the origin of the word ‘virus’ in Sanskrit, Greek, French and English is poison, and re-iterates that the primary cause of disease remains, as Hygienists have attested from the beginning - the violations of the laws of life.
He believes that the chief cause of mortality in endemic and epidemic disease is medical treatment. This is an interesting perspective, given our recent experience with Covid-19 and the push towards vaccination, and the various health implications of this. As he writes: “In all epidemics, as the curing becomes more heroic, the death rate increases. As Trall said: “There never was an epidemic since the world was made, in which allopathic drugging did not make a bad matter worse. The usual remedies resorted to are bleeding, blistering, calmel, antimony and quinine. A worse medley of manslaughterous missiles can hardly be contrived”. The simple history of all the severe endemic and epidemic diseases which the world has ever known has been that the more drugs were used the higher was the death rate”.
We will never know this to be true or otherwise with Covid-19. It is very difficult to lay blame on the vaccine for the loss of wellbeing years later. Certainly I know neighbours, clients and friends who have experienced vaccine injury to some extent, and I know others whose illness was agitated by the vaccine, triggering auto-immune flare-ups, and one of my friend’s blamed her terminal cancer diagnosis on the vaccine, as she had, until then, been heading towards remission. But will we ever know whether vaccination caused a loss of well-being or ‘saved’ people.
Herbert is keen to stress that not all who contact infectious or contagious disease will develop said disease and how this awareness raises questions on immunity - do we become immune by first becoming sick? Is sickness the route to immunity? However, he believe that a decrease in disease tends to arise due to changed environment and mode of living and not an acquired immunity.
On this he has more to say: “While a close connection is traceable between epidemics and the economic status of a people, medicine never seeks the eradication of a social system that breeds and perpetuates poverty. Rather, it seeks to drug away and cut away the effects of insanitary surroundings, overcrowding, malnutrition, etc,. or it seeks to immunise with vaccines and victims of social inequalities and injustices against the consequences of their economic plight”.
Herbert makes for an interesting read. He is keen for revolution: “A revolution involving a modification of nearly all our habits - voluntary habits, social usages and many of our established instiutions and large-scale industries - is not begun and completed in a single generation. But, after centuries of ignorance, disease and crime, mankind is again on the road to health. What a blessing is health and what is life without it, but a miserable dragging out of existence without pleasure or enjoyment!”
He has a point and certainly from an Ayurvedic perspective, “health is your wealth”. As Herbert writes: “The first object of a sick man is health and he can do nothing effectual in the way of bettering his conditon, in other respects, until he has gotten rid of diseases. So with the sick world - its first want is health; with that will go vigorously, clear-sightedness and a capacity for all others progress. Give the world health and you give it capacity for every kind of physical and moral improvement”.
He truly believes that health can be restored through the simple application of rest, fresh air, sunshine, pure water, wholesome food and a corrected way of life. He feels that without these shifts, that there is no other way to return to health. I can see the truth in this, and delving deeper into causative factors to ensure that deviation doesn’t again occur, that a ‘corrected’ way of life includes a release of emotional holding and a positive mindset.
I am hopeful that true health becomes a norm for many, that we re-evaluate what health means, and increasingly take back our power from those who profiteer from keeping us sick. We each have a remarkable capacity for healing given the right conditions and it is certainly my wish, as this year comes to a close, that 2026 gifts us increased self-belief, self-confidence and a momentum to reclaim more of our true nature - and nature as a whole.
In this way we may more clearly see where we have been previously limited by our medical programming and conditioning (Big Pharma included in here) and let go of any false beliefs we have about our ability to heal thyself and make the necessary changes we need to make, to live with increased aliveness and vitality. The journey always begins and ends with the Self.
Love Emma x
