blended & raw: dealing with detox

[Trunk]

Maybe a 2nd thread on how to manage the detox and body adjustment to blended & raw diet. Seems common that the blending creates and/or releases too much heat. Solutions?

 

Here's my ideas so far:

yin blends

less greens and yang fruits

more roots and yin fruits

 

example, today's blend:

gou qi zi (lychi berries), he shou wu, almonds, dang shen (Codonopsis) - all soaked overnight

carrot

 

gradual

blend only several times a week, and eat good healthy food otherwise

 

raw, nourishing, not blended

- I think there's something about blending that liberates a zing! that's too much at first

- personally, I've been eating a lot of salmon sashimi (raw salmon cut up and soaked in lemon juice & soy sauce for 20+ minutes). Eggs & other stuff could be on the list.

 

detox, circulation & ventilation

- drink plenty of liquids

- exercise for circulation (walk, jog, swim)

- acupressure, & joint exercises

 

 

Interested in feedback & tips, as I am just learning about this.

I guess an even more basic question is: Is the heat thing from blended raw just a detox & adjustment phase, or is it a danger that will always be there with blended raw?

Edited May 20, 2006 by Trunk

[sean]

So funny, I was going to start this same thread although without 1/10th of the amount of useful information. I just wanted to get out a disclaimer that even outside of raw or not raw, significantly altering one's diet is a rather powerful thing to do. Clearly it has a strong impact on the body, and the body has to do a lot of work to adjust. I have a lot of experience in the past working with people in another online community around big dietary changes (getting off all sugar, simple carbs, etc), and the things that surface are unbelievably dense driving some people to even seek out therapy and local, live support groups to help stabilize and integrate what comes up. Refined sugar in particular is basically a pain killer, and it's added to almost every processed food. Just cutting out simple sugars alone will cause a lot a lot of things under the surface to bubble up, old traumas that we've essentially been drugging ourselves numb to for decades. So, bottom line, like anything, let's remember to respect our bodies, go slower than our enthusiasm. I bring up the braces analogy in this context, it's like if you just start cranking braces full force on crooked teeth the first day you are just going to break all your teeth out and that's no good. I'm not saying be a wimp, push your limits, but then we your limits smack you down, acknowledge them and use something like Pietro's 70% rule. Don't train to failure, stay around 70% of your max.

 

Ok, that's my rant.

 

Sean

[Smile]

Is the heat thing from blended raw just a detox & adjustment phase, or is it a danger that will always be there with blended raw?

 

I see it as your body reaction to healing itself through natural means. You give it all the perfect materials to accomplish it, so based on how polluted your body is, you WILL experience some discomfort and even health problems. All depends on your overall body condition and the amount of raw food you eat.

 

If you meditate, it will make the whole experience easy.

 

Remember to eat a lot of food if you don't want to loose weight. Every 2 hours would be perfect.

Also, if it takes you more then 5 minutes to prepare a meal, you are doing something wrong here.

 

And the most important thing: BRUSH YOUR TEETH AFTER YOU EAT or you will ruin them. Add a little bit of salt to the water you rinse with to neutralize any acid from fruit in your mouth.

[Yoda]

I was eating donuts and did crack a beer or two. Didn't seem to help at all. I guess I just need to cut back. I think it was when I started going after raw spinach that I started to overheat. I suppose I might be able to get used to it. Perhaps move to Canada or something. Hopefully, it'll calm down.

 

My chemistry is rusty... does salt really neutralize an acid? I thought that a base like baking soda neutralizes acids and the byproduct is salt? (Max has been right so often, that I'm gunshy about disagreeing with him anymore.)

[Smile]

(Max has been right so often, that I'm gunshy about disagreeing with him anymore.)

Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.

 

Yoda, you are right about baking soda and you can use it instead of salt. I feel like b.soda is a bit too strong for me.

Edited May 20, 2006 by Smile

[sean]

If I'm not mistaken TCM views an all-raw diet as unnecessarily hard on the body no?

 

I've always been curious how we make distinctions between what is detox and what is just hurting us? Raw Paleo people talk about going through up to a year, sometimes longer of detox from eating all raw animal products and then they claim their health is impeccable afterward. There is even the phenomenon of iris color change which I find fascinating.

 

The raw veggie crowd who basically same the same thing, we have to detox from all these animal products, etc. and it will hurt at first but then we will finally get cleaned out and be in a state of higher health.

 

Then there are are like ten dozen variations on the theme, hormonal diets, neurochemistry diets, blood type diets, "warrior diets", etc, etc. All with similar claims that it will hurt at first as your body cleanses out the impurities of your previous terribly flawed way of eating, and then you will enter into a garden nutritional eden, the way you were "designed" to eat.

 

It's mind boggling. So many studies. So much agenda and money and politics behind them.

 

And I often wonder about this whole "detox" paradigm. One could make an argument that so called detox is really just the body adjusting to any new drastic way of eating we impose upon ourselves. Food, sex, sleep. Really basic physiological drives. Try to change any of them drastically and suddenly for good or worse and it will throw you. Not saying there is no logic to what is or isn't good for our bodies. I would say though that as far as painful or pleasurable symptoms as a result of what we eat, I chalk up at least 75% of that to the way we are going about making the change, our attitude toward food, the consciousness we are bringing to our relationship with what and how we are consuming.

 

Of course this little rant here is coming from someone who just last week haphazardly threw a bunch of crap he had laying around the fridge into a blender and drank it because he read that his online friends were getting into raw blending so take it with a grain of salt ... or salt substitute .. or whatever.

 

Sean

[Fireblood]

Maybe a 2nd thread on how to manage the detox and body adjustment to blended & raw diet. Seems common that the blending creates and/or releases too much heat. Solutions?

 

Here's my ideas so far:

yin blends

less greens and yang fruits

more roots and yin fruits

 

example, today's blend:

gou qi zi (lychi berries), he shou wu, almonds, dang shen (Codonopsis) - all soaked overnight

carrot

 

gradual

blend only several times a week, and eat good healthy food otherwise

 

raw, nourishing, not blended

- I think there's something about blending that liberates a zing! that's too much at first

- personally, I've been eating a lot of salmon sashimi (raw salmon cut up and soaked in lemon juice & soy sauce for 20+ minutes). Eggs & other stuff could be on the list.

 

detox, circulation & ventilation

- drink plenty of liquids

- exercise for circulation (walk, jog, swim)

- acupressure, & joint exercises

Interested in feedback & tips, as I am just learning about this.

I guess an even more basic question is: Is the heat thing from blended raw just a detox & adjustment phase, or is it a danger that will always be there with blended raw?

 

 

Trunk,

 

Try eating cold foods. I don't mean out of the freezer, I mean foods that slow the yang/hot chi.

 

At the moment your eating hot foods:

 

"gou qi zi (lychi berries), he shou wu, almonds, dang shen (Codonopsis) - all soaked overnight

carrot"

 

(Not sure about the lychi berries but probably hot). Also according to the same system, most green foods are cold and not hot!

 

Try oranges, apples, pears, tomatoes. This is from the Unani food system. I find it fairly accurate with relation to the effect that the food has on my body. A while back I was on pure raw food, I managed to hold back my kidney failure for a few years, but then I had to revert to normal diet again

 

Just search google for "Unani". It's an Indian/Arab food classification system,

 

Foods are hot and cold to varying degrees.

Edited May 20, 2006 by Fireblood

[neimad]

If I'm not mistaken TCM views an all-raw diet as unnecessarily hard on the body no?

 

I've always been curious how we make distinctions between what is detox and what is just hurting us? Raw Paleo people talk about going through up to a year, sometimes longer of detox from eating all raw animal products and then they claim their health is impeccable afterward. There is even the phenomenon of iris color change which I find fascinating.

 

The raw veggie crowd who basically same the same thing, we have to detox from all these animal products, etc. and it will hurt at first but then we will finally get cleaned out and be in a state of higher health.

 

Then there are are like ten dozen variations on the theme, hormonal diets, neurochemistry diets, blood type diets, "warrior diets", etc, etc. All with similar claims that it will hurt at first as your body cleanses out the impurities of your previous terribly flawed way of eating, and then you will enter into a garden nutritional eden, the way you were "designed" to eat.

 

It's mind boggling. So many studies. So much agenda and money and politics behind them.

 

And I often wonder about this whole "detox" paradigm. One could make an argument that so called detox is really just the body adjusting to any new drastic way of eating we impose upon ourselves. Food, sex, sleep. Really basic physiological drives. Try to change any of them drastically and suddenly for good or worse and it will throw you. Not saying there is no logic to what is or isn't good for our bodies. I would say though that as far as painful or pleasurable symptoms as a result of what we eat, I chalk up at least 75% of that to the way we are going about making the change, our attitude toward food, the consciousness we are bringing to our relationship with what and how we are consuming.

 

Of course this little rant here is coming from someone who just last week haphazardly threw a bunch of crap he had laying around the fridge into a blender and drank it because he read that his online friends were getting into raw blending so take it with a grain of salt ... or salt substitute .. or whatever.

 

Sean

 

 

yeah i feel ya.

 

ultimately it shouldn't matter what we eat as it's all the same stuff anyway. go down far enough into it and the only thing different is the matter in which it's vibrating.

 

however until we can impose our will directly on the vibrations of matter.... we have to go with stuff that vibrates at a higher frequency.

 

there is no ideal diet. there is no balanced diet. there is only where you are right now.

[Pietro]

For me when I get a detox I play with 7 variables:

butter and honey

cow's meat

liver meat

white meat (chicken ...)

eggs

banana/milk

celery juice

 

And in general:

raw butter as fat is taking away the poisons, thus I thrive on it and it cleans me.

if there is pain buttern and honey takes away it. But also banana, milk and cow's meat.

Egg instead tend to make the detox bigger/stronger. So I avoid them if I am already in pain. But if I think I want to go deeper I take them.

 

When I get fever I take more white meat.

Some time my body asks for blood and then I buy raw cow's liver and use that. It does not happen often now, but when I started I was coming out of a serious case of blood and chi deficiency.

 

celery juice is there to balance the acidity of the meat/eggs.

 

But sometimes the key is (butter (or cream), honey, egg, lemon juice) all blended (1/2 Hp is enough). It is a sort of basic tool in this diet. I don't eat it often because it is just a mess to prepare and I find it easier to get the engredients separated. But when I need to stay at home it makes my body go double wow.

[Lozen]

I've always been curious how we make distinctions between what is detox and what is just hurting us?

 

I was talking to Paul Bergner about this, and reading some stuff Michael Moore (the herbalist) said about it, and they both make a distinction between people who are liver deficient or liver excess. Liver excess people (who are usually overweight, hate excercise and thrive on fatty foods...and would HATE detoxing and probably not sign up to do it voluntarily) are the ones who need to detox. Liver deficient people are the ones who are always detoxing and could really use some more good protein and good fat. Or as Paul said, "Instead of detoxing again, they should just have a bowl of chicken soup and take a nap."

 

I feel that by detoxing as much as I have when I really needed more protein and fat (as verified by medical docs, my acupuncturist and an herbalist) was very harmful. I should have known because i didn't feel better, and it can be a trap to think that the sicker you are the more you are healing. I read that Dr. Christopher told a client of his who had cancer that the various welts on her legs (etc.) were just a healing reaction.

 

Having said that, I do think that you do sometimes feel a bit worse before you feel better, and that getting rid of sugar and refined carbs can never be a bad thing. And also even for someone liver deficient like me, I am doing a purification diet for a week right now to get ready for camp, just cutting out animal products, friend fatties, sugar, etc. and focusing on green leafies, fruit, B vit, whole grains, etc. Yum. My purpose, however, is to weaken the physical to access the spiritual, so I know it will be weakening.

[karen]

Yael,

 

Good points and nice to see our pal Paul Bergner represented . But I would even go so far as to defend Dr. Christopher's observation that something that was found to be cancer might have actually been a healing reaction.

 

Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer has discovered that cancer is largely the healing phase of a disease process. (I've summarized his work in articles on my website). This is not to say that it's cool to leave a healing reaction alone, because this natural healing reaction that the life force produces is usually unsuccessful, and the underlying disease entity does need to be removed medicinally.

 

But the cancer is just a symptom, which means an expression of the body trying to expel the disease entity, and a symptom is not the disease itself. In a sense, all symptoms actually are healing reactions, the body's attempt to overcome the disease, although often this healing reaction becomes part of the disease process when the body can't overcome the disease on its own.

 

With self-limiting diseases, the natural healing reaction is more or less successful. When you get a cold, the cold symptoms are not the disease, but the healing reaction to the disease, which can involve viruses which help in detox and tissue regeneration. So the part where you feel awful is often the healing reaction.

 

But.. the body can only correct a problem when it's a simple matter of imbalance. Then the natural function of the life force kicks in to produce homeostasis. Or you take herbs or foods or supplements to help fill deficiencies or remove excesses, to help the body's own efforts. That's all about balance, and that's what the body's healing capacity is about.

 

(Bit of digression at this point, bear with me..)

 

But there is another side to the life force, the generative capacity. This is where true disease takes hold. Then it's like a pregnancy, where no amount of strengthening or balancing can remove it, unless it's destroyed. This is a very different concept that's missing from TCM, but it's based on principles of nature.

 

The reason why the healing reaction isn't always successful is because the healing aspect of the life force can only function in a limited way. It can't cure disease that has taken hold on the generative side of the life force. There, the disease has to be annihilated by a medicine that has a similar energetic frequency.

 

And then you get a healing reaction from the body responding to the curative action of the medicine, as it rebalances and finally restores health.

 

But to get back to detox symptoms.. first you need to assess whether they're due to a true disease process or an imbalance. Liver excess, for example, can be an imbalance, but it could also be a symptom of an actual disease process that can't be cured by methods that simply balance.

 

This can be tricky, because many symptoms of true chronic diseases overlap with imbalances caused by diet and lifestyle choices. (Not to get into the discussion of what disease really is, beyond the fake labels that conventional medicine has given us!.. because that would take time to clearly define some terms.)

 

But let's say you were doing a detox diet, and you just keep feeling awful. One way to determine whether it's a helpful healing reaction is to notice whether you feel stronger on a deeper level. Are you feeling more mentally and emotionally clear and stable, even while you have some physical discomfort?

 

Usually when people are detoxing inappropriately, they're feeling weak and shaky to the core, and if you asked them if they feel destabilized in general, they'd say yes. That's not a healing reaction, but a further imbalance caused by inappropriate diet. It can even trigger true disease.

 

If a person has some skin outbreak or a bit of fatigue but generally feels brighter and clearer and more stable, that's a sign of a healing progression.

 

I wouldn't agree that we need to weaken the physical to access the spiritual. I think we need a strong physical vehicle for the powerful spiritual energies to come through us without destabilizing us. The mind tends to think in either/or terms, seeing the material and spiritual as sort of opposites. My understanding is that they are more functional polarities like yin and yang. You don't strengthen one by weakening the other, because they're not opposites but mutually supportive aspects of the whole.

 

-Karen

Edited May 20, 2006 by karen

[Yoda]

Sean,

 

Healing vs Hurting in the name of detox can be applied to practically any cultivation practice out there and usually the answer is D, all of the above.

 

To mix business with pleasure, to maximize one's "net bliss" is the way to go. The practice has to be net pleasurable in the here and now. Don't put it off till some other day or you might waste a lot of time going too hardcore with stuff like sungazing, retention, standing, etc. Just hypothetical examples, of course.

 

-Yoda

[Lozen]

Karen,

I agree with most of your points... But if someone has cancer and isn't taking care of it other than from taking intense liver herbs, I think there's a problem, whether it's a healing reaction or not... and I'm not a fan of Dr. Christopher. From what I understand cancer is *usually* a deficient condition so detoxing wouldn't even be appropriate....

 

Weakening the spiritual to access the physical is something that has been done in virtually evey tradition, whether it's fasting once a year or going on a Vision Quest with nothing but the clothes on your back and a blanket, as well as physical isolation in Quests or meditation, or taking medication that causes gastric cleansing and then dancing all night or taking peyote and singing in a kiva. I know that I've had incredible success in making sacrifices in the physical to access the spiritual because at some point I'd realize that I physically couldn't do it unless I surrendered and let the Light and the God force work through me. I wouldn't write off weakening the physical--something that has been traditionally and successfully done for thousands of generations-just because you've had a different experience of accessing the spiritual. Of course there is a strengthening that happens afterwards.

 

Yael

[neimad]

detox is a part of everyday.

 

every time you go to poo.... detox.

sweating.... detox.

farting... detox.

burping... detox.

sneezing... detox.

 

[Pietro]

But let's say you were doing a detox diet, and you just keep feeling awful. One way to determine whether it's a helpful healing reaction is to notice whether you feel stronger on a deeper level. Are you feeling more mentally and emotionally clear and stable, even while you have some physical discomfort?

 

Usually when people are detoxing inappropriately, they're feeling weak and shaky to the core, and if you asked them if they feel destabilized in general, they'd say yes. That's not a healing reaction, but a further imbalance caused by inappropriate diet. It can even trigger true disease.

 

If a person has some skin outbreak or a bit of fatigue but generally feels brighter and clearer and more stable, that's a sign of a healing progression.

 

I wouldn't agree that we need to weaken the physical to access the spiritual. I think we need a strong physical vehicle for the powerful spiritual energies to come through us without destabilizing us. The mind tends to think in either/or terms, seeing the material and spiritual as sort of opposites. My understanding is that they are more functional polarities like yin and yang. You don't strengthen one by weakening the other, because they're not opposites but mutually supportive aspects of the whole.

 

-Karen

Hello Karen,

interesting description of the difference between a detox and an illness.

 

Usually I consider that if I have symptoms, and if I start to eat worse they disappear then it was a detox. And for some people who start raw food diet old or very old sometimes the suggestion is to keep some cooked meat in their diet to avoid unnecessary deep detox. If you start on a raw food diet when you are 60 or 70 you are not going to be able to detox completely by the time you are buried. So it makes more sense, if you just want to feel fine until while you are in this body, not to be extreme.

 

But I like how your description does not require a person to get out of the detox to know if it was a detox.

 

The only doubt I have with very deep detox. People who are changing some deep things near their core. I remember a person I knew who after a failed marriage had a cancer. Refused to operate, and now is a healthy buddhist. I bet when she had that cancer she was not feeling 'stronger'. All her life was being shaken.

[karen]

The only doubt I have with very deep detox. People who are changing some deep things near their core. I remember a person I knew who after a failed marriage had a cancer. Refused to operate, and now is a healthy buddhist. I bet when she had that cancer she was not feeling 'stronger'. All her life was being shaken.

 

Yup. Of course I can't say for sure, but my guess would be that in that case the healing reaction was becoming part of the disease process. But somehow she was eventually able to resolve the deep issues that triggered the cancer.

 

Going through deep inner transformation isn't necessarily a trauma, I don't think. But it can be, especially the complex of emotions involving grief, anger, fear guilt, etc. Then left untreated, it can overwhelm the life force and take on a life of its own (cancer).

 

But the cancerous growth is not the disease entity, and it's the disease entity that needs to be treated. Of course if a growth has gone so far as to mechanically obstruct a vital organ, then you need to remove it. Just like you know that killing the messenger isn't the whole solution, but if the messenger itself becomes dangerous, you have to deal with it directly too.

 

Dr. Hamer showed that trauma causes lesions in the brain which can be detected by CT scan, and those lesions correspond to various parts of the body that develop cancer. He himself developed cancer after the death of his son. He said that the emotional trauma or "biological conflict" as he called it, remained unresolved and when cancer developed, it was in that particular area that related to the type of conflict it was.

 

Sometimes the person can resolve the conflict on their own, and the cancer disappears, at least temporarily. I suspect that's what might have happened with the person you described. Although, trauma usually makes an imprint on the "generative" side of the life force, which usually requires remedies to target the specific frequency of the imprint to remove it permanently.

 

But because the curative medicine is energy and not chemically active, you can sometimes effect a cure by using Truth as the remedy, or hypnotherapy-like techniques that use the law of similars with thought. The actual medicine seems to be more effective, though. Remedies made by writing the name of the remedy on a piece of paper can work too! But the finding is that their effects don't last as long.

 

As the imprints of trauma are released from the subtle energy bodies, that's where a deep detox takes place naturally. You want to support that with drainage remedies and good diet, but there isn't a great need at that point for radical detox regimes that push the sustentive side of the life force too much.

 

Very often the body holds on to toxins which are associated with certain trauma, so no matter how much you try to force the body to release the toxins, they're held up until the emotional issue is resolved.

 

-Karen

[karen]

Another way to look at the healing process is the analogy of a boat crossing a river. You have to make forward progress to get to the other side. But the forward progress can stir things up and create too much turbulence, and then you find you're becoming destabilized.

 

So you have to slow down or stop for a bit and focus on stabilizing. You focus on more supportive remedies at that point (chicken soup and naps are good examples, also potentized remedies that support the constitution). Then you can pick up momentum again. But you can only follow the path that the life force is taking.

 

While you're stabilizing you don't think of it as a standstill, because you understand that that stage is part of the process, of constantly shifting your approach according to your response to the movement.

 

-Karen

Edited May 21, 2006 by karen

[Pietro]

Yup. Of course I can't say for sure, but my guess would be that in that case the healing reaction was becoming part of the disease process. But somehow she was eventually able to resolve the deep issues that triggered the cancer.

 

Going through deep inner transformation isn't necessarily a trauma, I don't think. But it can be, especially the complex of emotions involving grief, anger, fear guilt, etc. Then left untreated, it can overwhelm the life force and take on a life of its own (cancer).

 

But the cancerous growth is not the disease entity, and it's the disease entity that needs to be treated. Of course if a growth has gone so far as to mechanically obstruct a vital organ, then you need to remove it. Just like you know that killing the messenger isn't the whole solution, but if the messenger itself becomes dangerous, you have to deal with it directly too.

 

Dr. Hamer showed that trauma causes lesions in the brain which can be detected by CT scan, and those lesions correspond to various parts of the body that develop cancer. He himself developed cancer after the death of his son. He said that the emotional trauma or "biological conflict" as he called it, remained unresolved and when cancer developed, it was in that particular area that related to the type of conflict it was.

 

Sometimes the person can resolve the conflict on their own, and the cancer disappears, at least temporarily. I suspect that's what might have happened with the person you described. Although, trauma usually makes an imprint on the "generative" side of the life force, which usually requires remedies to target the specific frequency of the imprint to remove it permanently.

 

But because the curative medicine is energy and not chemically active, you can sometimes effect a cure by using Truth as the remedy, or hypnotherapy-like techniques that use the law of similars with thought. The actual medicine seems to be more effective, though. Remedies made by writing the name of the remedy on a piece of paper can work too! But the finding is that their effects don't last as long.

 

As the imprints of trauma are released from the subtle energy bodies, that's where a deep detox takes place naturally. You want to support that with drainage remedies and good diet, but there isn't a great need at that point for radical detox regimes that push the sustentive side of the life force too much.

 

Very often the body holds on to toxins which are associated with certain trauma, so no matter how much you try to force the body to release the toxins, they're held up until the emotional issue is resolved.

 

-Karen

 

 

I think for cancer AV is the best one around. I would have no doubt that if a person were to ask me suggestions for cancer now I would adress them to Aajonus. Hamer theories seem interesting, but at the end of the day with Hamer we had a major senior instructor in the HT leaving his body. If he had used Aajonus he would probably be alive today. AV declares a rate of success of 96%. Which is only possible if you have really understood the roots of the illness. And his explenation of it (why his diet works) makes sense at my unlearned eyes. So I would suggest a strict Primal Diet, reading the book, and then traveling to Calif. to get a personal visit.

[karen]

I think for cancer AV is the best one around. I would have no doubt that if a person were to ask me suggestions for cancer now I would adress them to Aajonus. Hamer theories seem interesting, but at the end of the day with Hamer we had a major senior instructor in the HT leaving his body. If he had used Aajonus he would probably be alive today. AV declares a rate of success of 96%. Which is only possible if you have really understood the roots of the illness. And his explenation of it (why his diet works) makes sense at my unlearned eyes. So I would suggest a strict Primal Diet, reading the book, and then traveling to Calif. to get a personal visit.

 

I agree about Hamer's limitations. The value of his work is in the understanding of the traumatic causes of disease, as he proves it by showing the actual brain lesions that result. That's a big breakthrough for the western understanding of mind/body medicine. Dr. Hahnemann understood it back in his day, although that aspect of his work has only come to light in recent years.

 

Also Hamer only uses psychotherapeutic methods to resolve the biological conflict, and that's not usually enough.

 

Aajonus does have a powerful method. But after studying his work and the work of Dr. Hahnemann (putting my own personal experience aside for the moment), I think Hahnemann's complete system of medicine goes deeper into the understanding of the roots of disease. Aajonus' view of the causes I think are correct as far as they go in describing some of the proximal causes of symptoms, but I think the causes of disease are even more fundamental.

 

Hahnemann taught that disease is dynamic, energetic not material, and the root of disease is on the subtle energy (etheric or astral) level. So he used dynamized remedies that aren't chemically active but act on the energetic level to cancel out the energy frequency of the disease.

 

Aajonus' diet does get a lot of success, in a certain sense, and I know that from having been active in the primal diet community. But I don't think he's fully understanding the nature of disease and what success really means. He would consider a case successful if the symptoms disappeared. Hahnemann taught that when symptoms disappear, it could be for any of three different reasons:

 

1. You've cured the underlying disease (removed the disease entity), so the expressed symptoms are no longer needed

2. You haven't cured the underlying disease, but have only palliated (removed symptoms temporarily, and this could mean years)

3. You haven't cured the underlying disease, and you've actually pushed the disease deeper into the organism (suppressed) where the life force will express it again at a later time, usually involving a more vital organ than before.

 

So it's important to work toward #1 and know that your method is working in that way.

 

The only way to know that is to understand the nature of the disease (true diagnosis, and there are usually many diseases involved in a case), and to know what principle you are applying in your curative treatment.

 

You can only be successful using a principle that applies in the jurisdiction that you're dealing with. It's sort of like trying a case in court, where you can pull out the most powerful argument in the books, but if you're in the wrong court, the wrong jurisdiction for that case, you won't get the best results even though your method is powerful.

 

Aajonus is using diet in a radical way to kind of force it to act in a jurisdiction that it's not designed to act. That can get noticeable results, for sure, but he doesn't know the subtle (yet powerful) ways in which that approach can weaken a person in other ways.

 

I would have to define all these terms according to Hahnemann in much more depth, in order to illustrate this more clearly. And I could do that if anyone's interested in going further with it.

 

The main idea here, though, is that when disease seems to be resolved, we really have to understand the root cause of the particular problem in order to know that it has been pulled up by the root. And to know that the curative medicine was given according to the jurisdiction involved in that case.

 

Otherwise, we're only judging the success based on symptoms disappearing, and that's a big fallacy we see in conventional medicine as well as "alternative" medicine.

 

Many people think their illness was cured, and then months or years later another illness crops up, and they go to another specialist who treats it as if it was a different illness. But the second could be another manifestation of the first illness that was never cured completely. This often happens when people use allopathic drugs to suppress symptoms, but it also often happens with alternative approaches that only partially address the issue and leave the disease entity to fester. Lovely.

 

When people are sick, they search for THE best treatment. That was pretty much my main occupation for 30 years. But I found that the answer wasn't one particular method that was better than the rest. It was that there was a system that had the most sensible map of the territory that had to be covered, that showed me which jurisdictions I had to be working in, according to my particular case, to get the best leverage.

 

That meant that diet had a particular place, but it laid out the exact role that that took, which was under the jurisdiction of only one side of the Living Power. The other side held the root of the disease.

 

I did some consults with Aajonus and worked with his advice, but it didn't help my particular situation at all. I realize that mine was a very unusual case, and I still think Aajonus' method has a lot to offer, within its realm.

 

But I would suggest that with complex illness like cancer or the other ones we know by the allopathic labels, those labels aren't meaningful. Each person with the same kind of cancer, for example, will receive different treatment with Hahnemann's method, because each person's life force has its own map. The best results I've ever seen are by understanding and following that unique map.

 

-Karen