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In the past few years the notion has crept abroad among the population, macrobiotic and otherwise, that macrobiotic foods and certain nutrients have healing qualities. This is a bogus idea. It is a notion that arises from the prevailing materialistic orthodoxy which is the pervasive ruling delusion of the times in which we live.
This delusion is the concept that the human being, the plant and the animal is, respectively, the human physical organism, the plant physical organism and the animal physical organism, and these are composed of atoms and molecules which function according to the laws of physics and chemistry. This concept is not a truthful concept and is therefore totally unhelpful and ultimately destructive of any possibility for the human being, plants or animals, to have any hope for the future.
In order to understand why it is destructive both personally and socially, it is as well to repeat the description of the constitution of human being.
The constitution of the human being is:
Physical body.
Etheric Body.
Astral Body.
Ego.
The Physical Body is that aspect of the human being which we see with our physical eyes, touch with our hands, and walks about on two feet. This body is that which is composed of mineral substances. Now, if the human being was merely a physical body composed of nothing else but mineral substances, then it would take on the appearance of the soil and rocks, it would have no form and be void of any sign of life, an inanimate, formless dust on the side of the road. It is only this domain of life - The Mineral Kingdom - which obeys the laws of physics and chemistry, is dead, inanimate and subject to continual erosion - "rust never sleeps".
If it were the case that this was generally understood then modern physics and chemistry, and the material sciences, would only be concerned with making objects - computers, equipment, cars, houses, highways, etc., which is right and proper.
However, when these concepts, laws, constants, etc., which properly are only applicable when working with material substances like iron, carbon, oxygen, silicon, etc., are applied to the plant, animal and human, then necessarily only disaster and destruction can follow.
Which has in fact been the case. As a write these words a major disaster of epic proportions is currently playing out in the Balkans and this is nothing but one of the many symptoms inevitably arising out of this materialistic delusion I am describing. Furthermore, if it were the case that it was generally understood that materialistic concepts are only and properly applicable to inanimate matter, then many hundreds of millions of people would be more productively employed than they are currently employed in activities which are necessarily destructive of themselves and the earth.
It would take a book to account all the activities currently undertaken by people which are necessarily self-destructive, that is, suicidal, and I will only name the ones I consider the most perniciously destructive. Pre-eminent among them is modern scientific medicine (including modern scientific research, hospitals, biotechnology, and the pharmaceutical industry) - the linchpin around which the present self-destruction of humanity and the earth is built - the food industry, agribusiness, modern government (current politics is a completely pathetic shambles), the economy, (which is totally bankrupt - morally, and in every way you can imagine), modern public education, and mass media.
The Etheric Body is invisible to the naked eye, cannot be weighed, measured or quantified in any way. It is also called the Life or Formative Body and in terms of Eastern concepts, the "chi" body. It is this body which permeates physical substances giving shape, form and life to the physical body of plants, animals and human beings.
In the case of the plant, it is constituted of physical and etheric body only.
It is the etheric body which, so to speak, shapes the body the way it is, as well as the form of the internal organs and tissues and is responsible for their function. The etheric body does not obey the laws of physics and chemistry; it, in fact, overcomes and repels the laws of physics and chemistry so that the physical body can in fact grow and develop and carry out its proper functions - heart beating, inhalation and exhalation of the lungs, secretions of the various organs, peristalsis of the intestines, micturition, digestion and assimilation, etc., which all take place spiritually.
The Astral Body, or Soul, is the spiritual "body" of our emotions, feelings, aspirations, attitudes, worldviews, perceptions, thoughts, dreams, visions, ideals, morals, ideas, inspirations, cognitions, etc, etc.
The animal species are constituted of physical body, etheric body and astral body. The difference between animals and human beings is that each species of animal has its astral body so we can speak of "Lion Soul", "Cow Soul", "Eagle Soul", "Elephant Soul", "Rat Soul" etc. This means that in the case of an individual of any species, once we have studied and understood its behaviour, then we know and understand the behaviour of all the individual members of the same species.
The "Ego" is that aspect of the human being which distinguishes the human being from the animals. It is the "Higher Self" or "I Am" and is the spiritual member which gives each one of us our personal identity. When anyone says "I", they can only be referring to themselves. The Ego is that aspect of ourselves that allows us to self-reflect about our attitudes, ways of thinking, worldviews, feelings, emotions etc.
So, to return to the subject matter of this essay, the bogus idea that foods, any foods, having healing qualities, it is easy to understand, from the above description of the differences in constitution of the plant compared to the human being, why it is simply not possible for any plant to heal the body or have healing effects.
The word heal means "to make whole". Thus to heal ourselves means we have to heal all three aspects of our body - physical, etheric and astral. Now, the nature of our etheric body is that it organizes and forms physical substance into the organs and tissues of the physical body and the evidence of the physical senses observing our physical body is that the functions of the body are in a state of "dynamic homeostasis" - in so many words, it is always making balance. This means the etheric body is the dynamic spiritual body which is responsible for the shape of the heart and its rhythmical activity, for the inhalation and exhalation of the lungs, etc., etc.
Thus only those foods we eat which are constituted of physical and etheric body are healthy for us to eat. If they are refined, processed or synthesized, they cannot but have destructive effects upon the body. So, obviously all chemical drugs, vitamins, minerals, preservatives, colorings, dyes, stabilizers, emulsifiers will adversely affect our health. Furthermore, animal meats are not properly speaking constituted of both physical and etheric bodies, since within three days of death, the etheric body of the cow, lamb, pig etc., dissolves into the "world ether".
Since the astral body is 'attached' to the etheric body and the etheric body permeates the physical, then it is easy to see why foods which are only composed of dead matter cause disturbances in the etheric body which then permeate into the astral body and cause disturbances there. Of course, the reverse is also true; disturbances in thinking, feeling, emotions, attitudes, worldviews etc., will permeate into the physical body via the etheric body.
The essence of macrobiotic eating, then, has to do with understanding the dynamics of etheric body of the foods we eat with respect to yin and yang and the Five Transformation Theory in relation our etheric body. However, we do not eat these foods in order to heal our body, but to support the etheric body in its proper dynamic homeostasis. If we do not at the same time begin the long, arduous and strenuous work of undertaking the self-reflection necessary to purge our astral body of its disturbances then there is no possibility of any healing taking place except on the most superficial of levels. And, of course, one of the disturbances we have to rid the astral body of is the fallacy that the world is constituted of atoms and molecules which function according to the laws of physics and chemistry! Then we will no longer be seduced by all the claims resounding through the world about this miracle drug and that miracle food, and nutraceuticals, blue-green algae, magnet therapy etc., or the idea that because say, dried shiitake mushrooms are excellent for helping to strengthen and enliven kidney function, there must be some "active ingredient" which we can isolate from the shiitake mushroom and extract into into a so-called "therapeutic substance" for prostate cancer and make millions! Or believe, God forbid, that there is a cure for cancer. All these are just a veritable Sargasso Sea of dead -ends, diversions, blind alleys and get rich quick schemes.