THE ALCHEMYCAL PAGES

INFECTIOUS ILLNESS.

Part 3.

To summarize what we have learned in the previous two columns.

The problem of infectious illnesses, whether the identified organism is a virus, bacteria or other parasite, is accurately recognized as being an illness of the host rather than illness caused by the infectious organism.

In other words, any illness classified as an infectious disease is not an illness which is primarily the result of the host being invaded by the parasite. On the contrary, the illness of the host results in pathogenic conditions developing in various organs of the host and it is the pathogenic condition of the organs which then attract the invasion of the organism(virus, bacteria, worm, spirochete, flagella, amoeba, fungus, etc).

So, the proper questions we need to ask are ­ what is illness and how do we become ill?

A macrobiotic description of illness is that any illness is a symptom or a set of symptoms indicating that the person who is experiencing them has created them due to living a lifestyle which is "out-of-balance" with respect to the order of the universe. In other words, our hepatitis C, or cancer, or AIDS, or diabetes, etc., is not an accident. Rather, it is an indicator we are, and have been for our whole lives, living a life which is not consonant with what we, as human beings, actually are.

Of all the aspects of existence which determine how we live, the two most significant are our daily eating habits and our daily habits of thought. This again has been long recognized. The importance of food in human illness is noted in the Taittiriya of the Upanishads, a sacred text of Ancient India, where it states, "Out of Brahman, who is Self, came ether; out of ether, air; out of air, fire; out of fire, water; out of water, earth; out of earth, vegetation; out of vegetation, food; out of food, the body of man. The body of man, composed of the essence of food, is the physical sheath of the Self. From food are born all creatures which live upon food and after death return to food. Food is the chief of all things. It is therefore said to be medicine for all diseases of the body."

In stating that "Food is the chief of all things" and is "therefore said to be medicine for all diseases of the body" the case cannot be made any clearer that our daily dietary intake plays a paramount role in the development of illness and health. And many sages and sacred texts of many cultures following the Ancient Indian Culture have stated the same truth, including The Bible, and The Yellow Emperor's Classic Of Internal Medicine.

The question then presents itself ­ what are we to eat if we want to be healthy and what do we eat that makes us ill?

Of course, today we are inundated with information about diet and nutrition. However all this dietary and nutrient information takes as its starting point the most fundamental error it is possible to make with regard to the constitution of the universe and the human organism. The error is that the universe and all that it contains, including the human organism, is constituted of atoms and molecules which obey the laws of physics and chemistry. This is not true and is fundamentally inaccurate, only applying to a very narrow and limited range of existence, that of the mineral kingdom.

Macrobiotic understanding, on the other hand, takes as it starting point the premise that the universe and all that it contains, including the human organism, and food, is spiritual. The spiritual constitution of the human being is that we are constituted of Ego, Astral Body, Etheric Body and Physical Body and the physical body is also spiritual. (Animals, are distinct from the human being in that they are constituted of Astral Body, Etheric Body and Physical Body. Plants are constituted of Etheric Body and Physical Body and Minerals are constituted of the Physical Body only).

In other words, the physical body of another human being we see with our physical eyes is not the actual physical body itself, which is spiritual and therefore invisible to the physical eye. The physical body we see with our physical eyes is, in the poetic description by Rudolf Steiner, " a gesture by the mineral kingdom we are in the presence of another human being".

The physical body we see is thus the outer appearance of the spiritual physical body. The activity of the physical body, its organs and tissues, thus cannot be the result of the activity of the mineral kingdom, because in the domain of physical existence, the mineral kingdom is dead, it is the realm of death. Therefore, there is no possibility that the activity of the human physical body, its organs and tissues, blood and tissue fluids can be the result of the laws of physics and chemistry, which properly and only apply to the mineral kingdom.

The form and dynamic activity of the human organism is given to it by the etheric body, which is also given the description of "formative" or "life" body. The word etheric can also be transposed with the similar concept of the Ancient Far East, 'chi"(Chinese), 'ki' (Japanese) and 'prana' (India). Thus we have the concept of the formative, etheric or chi body which is the spiritual activity which gives shape, size, action and formation to the spiritual physical body, and the outer appearance of this is rendered in the physical body we see and diagnose with our physical eyes.

Unless we have this understanding of how the physical body makes its appearance to the physical eyes and we make the mistake of supposing the physical body as presented to the physical sense organs is the reality of the physical body, we are fundamentally operating in the realm of delusion.

Modern scientific medicine has been based on this delusion ever since its inception over 400 years ago and it thus hardly surprising the problem of degenerative and infectious illnesses continues and will continue to be an insoluble problem for modern scientific medicine.

Macrobiotic understanding takes as its starting point that what is significant about our daily food intake is its dynamic in terms of yin and yang. Yin and yang is essentially a descriptive language for understanding the dynamics of the activity of the etheric or "chi" body of the human organism and the plant or animal organism.

The general concept of macrobiotic dietary habits is to harmonize the dynamics of our daily food intake so as to support the balancing dynamics of the human etheric body. It is implicit in this understanding that the etheric body is in always and at all times attempting to maintain a state of functional homeostasis in the physical body.

When an analysis is undertaken in terms of yin and yang of the human organism, generally speaking, the dynamic of the relationship of yin to yang of the human organism is in a ratio of 7 yin:1 yang.

On conducting a similar analysis of the foods available to the human being we arrive at what is called The Spectrum of Human Food Groups in terms of yin and yang. Reading from left to right, with the most extreme yin on the left and the most extreme yang on the right, the Spectrum is as seen in the Introduction.

All the food groups in the "area of balance' are the ones used as the basis of a macrobiotic way of eating. The foods here, when put together appropriately for the individual will approximate a ratio of 7 yin:1 yang.

Daily macrobiotic eating habits starts with cooked whole grains as primary food, cooked vegetables as secondary food, beans and fruit as supplementary foods and foods for pleasure are all the other food. As an aside here, I must mention that this analysis is true, generally speaking, for those of us living above the Arctic and below the Antarctic circle. Also, there is a variation of this spectrum for those people living in those areas of the tropics where whole grains are not available.

I mention this since we know that Hepatitis C is the major world-wide epidemic, with far more individuals experiencing the illness in less-developed countries than in the developed countries of the world. Thus, a macrobiotic approach for these people to heal themselves of this illness(or any illness) is far more economically and practically feasible than is the one advocated by the WHO of The United Nations.

Of course, all foods at the extreme yin and extreme yang ends of the spectrum are totally avoided when we start our conscious macrobiotic way of living and eating (although sea salt is of a special nature and is used daily, in small amounts, when cooking whole grains).

I say 'conscious macrobiotic way of living and eating' because every human being who has ever lived or is living eats and lives macrobiotically, it cannot be otherwise. Thus, the whole problem of illness can only be resolved by individuals choosing to consciously adopt and learn how to live and eat macrobiotically. When this arduous undertaking is carried out thoroughly and conscientiously as a daily way of living, then we are living a live which is creatively healthy. This means we are living daily creating healthy lives for ourselves. In other words, we are not living a life which is designed to prevent illness, rather we are living a life where the possibility of serious illness is not even a consideration.

However, we first have to heal ourselves and in the next column I will give further details on how to go about healing ourselves macrobiotically of illness in general and Hepatitis C in particular.

Comments or questions can be sent to the address below as I check this address every few weeks. Please mention Alchemycal Pages in the subject line. Thank you. Patricia

kaareb@mac.com