It was never the purpose or intention of these essays to discuss ANY SPECIFIC "diseases"; since virtually all could rightly be considered merely symptoms of the ONE BASIC "disease" ---the body's failure to repair, maintain and energize itself adequately as described briefly in Part 9. "Unconventional Concepts of Illness & Health" .

But after the dis - - ease "panic" of the early 2020's (even more than the HIV/AIDS panic of the 1980's) became such a polarizing issue both politically and "religiously" that nobody seemed to be listening to anybody; and since truly natural health and healing is not on EITHER side but IS often categorized in the minds of many as part of the DO-NOTHING crowd; there appeared to be some widely-overlooked science that BOTH groups (and the rest of us, for that matter) really need to stop and listen to and think about.

FIRST--- "natural healing" is NOT about DOING NOTHING. NOR is it just replacing so-called "big pharma" with supposedly safer, "natural medicine" ---as in so-called "folk healing" or even "scientifically" formulated "herbal medicine". Truly-natural health and healing is not about ANY kind of medicine. It's an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONCEPT AND OBJECTIVE altogether; and that is to physically and biologically (not chemically and pharmaceutically) support and maximize the entire body's OWN NATURAL, INTERNAL, BUILT-IN day-to-day self-cleaning, self-repairing functions ---- primarily by SUPPLYING it with the quality "raw materials" it needs to do that work properly (the biological/nutritional equivalent of fuel, cleaning supplies and building-materials), and by SHIELDING it from as much of "civilization's" toxic materials as humanly possible. A full and complete practical application of these principles (though bordering on impossible in today's world) would make "medicine" NOT ONLY unneeded, but fundamentally harmful itself. (Remember, most medicine is "a controlled substance" ---by prescription only--- because it IS recognized as dangerous stuff.) But don't assume natural healing is some fantasy that could never really heal or prevent illness just because it sounds "too simple". It's actually the only TRUE healing there ever is --- with OR without medicine --- and is usually accomplished more IN SPITE OF any OUTSIDE healing efforts than BECAUSE of them. It's the dominant culture's strongly-held preconceived notions of what is "proper" or "the right way to live" that suppresses good health and makes genuine healing difficult.

----------------------------- We decry the damage to "THE environment". Do we really imagine the same damage is not being done to our body's INTERNAL "environment" by our ultra-civilized, high-tech, modern lifestyle? -----------------------------

The so-called "civilized" world seems to have the idea that life is an accident, and that our supposedly highly intelligent society must sift through the "rubble" and try to bring some sort of order to the "chaos"; when, actually, life MUST have been HIGHLY ORGANIZED when it began, since reliable scientific evidence (in contrast to most pseudo-scientific speculation) indicates that life cannot exist for any useful, sustainable period of time any other way.

----------------------------- Whether or not a VIRUS is "alive" is more a philosophical than a scientific question ---on which biologists still appear unable to agree. (You know--- What CONSTITUTES life? etc.) There DOES seem to be general agreement that it is NOT a "living CELL", but even a virus shows considerable internal regulation and organization. It does not appear as totally random chaos.

----Smart-but-stupid human technology has "created" many toxic and "acceptably-toxic" chemical compounds (acceptable to whom? is the question) that were not originally part of the "natural world". Could the first "specimen" of each "virus-strain" be a PART of a once-living cell that did not die a "natural death" but succumbed to one or more of such unnatural substances yet with a functioning DNA-replication mechanism still intact? We may never know for sure. (And that's OK. The entire subject will become irrelevant someday.) -----------------------------

And while "natural science" marvels at the order and "wisdom" in "nature", so-called "civilization" seems obsessed with controlling "nature" as if it were demented, remodeling it as if it were a blunder, or even conquering it as if it were an enemy. Technology becomes the only "science" that matters. (Ah, well, that's where the money, power and prestige is, isn't it? And, as you surely realize, it's the "love" of those that "makes [THIS] world go 'round") :) Unfettered, NON-COMMERCIALIZED scientific research indicates, however, that the REAL needs for long-term TRUE QUALITY of human life are: (1) UNPROCESSED food IN IT'S NATURAL STATE, (2) Avoiding all contact with chemical compounds that were NOT ALREADY put together in "nature" (and possibly a few that DO appear to have been) and (3) COOPERATING with "nature" AS FULLY AS POSSIBLE rather than trying to refine, refashion or remodel the earth and it's "amenities".

----------------------------- Many years ago, a Medical Doctor and nutritionist who was an earnest advocate of such research had an elegantly simple guiding "formula" for that first need: "Eat only those foods which [readily] spoil or rot or decay ...before they do." (Quoted from personal interview in AWAKE! February 22, 1968 "How Fine are Refined Foods?" and his own book "Please Doctor, Do Something"). The other two needs are equally simple IN CONCEPT. It's "civilized" society's egotistic mindset about what's "proper" that makes applying them complicated. -----------------------------

----------------------------- New York Times Magazine investigative reporter Michael Moss, in his Feb. 20, 2013 in-depth news story "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food", DOES reveal a food industry PROBLEM that plagues at least Western so-called "civilization" (All-caps added below by this editor for emphasis)----

"It's not just a matter of poor willpower on the part of the consumer and a give-the-people-what-they-want attitude on the part of the food MANUFACTURERS." he says. " What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a CONSCIOUS EFFORT --- taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles --- to GET PEOPLE HOOKED on foods that are CONVENIENT and inexpensive."
----------- (---while knowingly disregarding and even intentionally downplaying it's scientifically shown NEGATIVE nutritional value and long-term DAMAGING effect on the human body and its true quality of life, the rest of the article reveals --- the delayed damage to health and its consequent Medical costs would prove NEITHER convenient NOR inexpensive---ed.) -----------
He continues, "I talked to more than 300 people in or formerly employed by the processed-food industry, from scientists to marketers to C.E.O.'s. Some were willing whistle-blowers, while others spoke reluctantly when presented with some of the thousands of pages of secret memos that I obtained from inside the food industry's operations. What follows is a series of small case studies of a handful of characters whose work then, and perspective now, sheds light on how the foods are created and sold to people who, while not powerless, ARE extremely vulnerable to the INTENSITY of these companies' INDUSTRIAL FORMULATIONS and selling campaigns."
---See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the- extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html
If you're not a subscriber, you'll need to "sign-in" with your Google, Apple, or Facebook account to read the rest of the article; but, as of early 2024, it WAS still available. And if you care about your life and health, you need to read that report. It's quite revealing! ---- The inside story of SO-CALLED "food" that's MANUFACTURED ---not grown out of the ground naturally, but ENGINEERED ---not just physically and chemically, but even more detrimentally, PSYCHOLOGICALLY ---- The monopolistic "heart and soul" of "Big Business".

No "conspiracy" or "theory" here --- these companies and their multi-million dollar research laboratories actually exist, and are INTENSELY COMMITTED COMPETITORS, not conspirators by any rationalized definition. -----------------------------

Of course, many people agree ---abstractly--- that human activity is ruining the earth. But real life, in the natural world, unchanged by human intervention, has long been seen by "polite society" as UN-civilized, even barbaric. Granted, it's far more momentarily convenient (as well as socially acceptable) to take a vaccine or other medicine and go on living one's customary "civilized", refined, self-indulgent lifestyle as if IT had made no contribution to the problem and each illness or disease were a separate, unrelated issue that "just happened" or was "caught" from someone else. (Who did the person with the FIRST case "catch" it from?) The meticulous-design evidence strongly suggests, however, that in the human body, most illnesses ARE related and ALL the elements of truly natural health are connected and inter-dependent. It's a sort of "package deal". Not meaning there's no room for individual tastes and preferences. There's LOTS of variety in nature. But WE REALLY need to cooperate with IT --- and try diligently to shake this deeply held egocentric feeling that modern "civilization" is somehow smarter than "nature". If life really is "sacred", as medicine's fearful, insecure (and often highly prejudiced) advocates are prone to retort to natural healing, then DON'T TAMPER with it! Of course, civilization's "refined" self-pleasing convenient-but-shortsighted physical/material lifestyle could not exist WITHOUT remodeling "nature", could it? ----And what a contrast to those "three basic needs" for TRUE quality-of-life described above!

----------------------------- In case you missed it, Part 9. "How Does It Work?" explains further details of the natural healing concept. (As does the right-hand column of THIS page from a DIFFERENT perspective) Link opens in a new window ---- we're not through here, yet. -----------------------------

SECOND--- Medicine is NOT the only "savior" and protector --- or the only "scientific" healing method. In fact

You likely recognize, however, that TRUE HEALTH does not come from something you TAKE. It's something you BUILD or CULTIVATE over many years. And those who have spent a lifetime carefully and consistently doing just that in harmony with the natural, life-respecting "3-basic-needs" briefly outlined above (and who therefore know from personal experience how well it works) are not about to risk compromising the PROTECTION that comes from THAT extensive "investment" just to be "socially acceptable". ---"Life is sacred!" Remember? ---Popular opinion is not--- And you surely know that most medicines/drugs are NOT compatible with a number of other drugs. Are you also aware that many are medically recognized as incompatible with certain simple, natural, "healing" foods? Ask any caring, knowledgeable pharmacist. Or see Part 8. "Is It For YOU?" for one classic example.

Interestingly, according to news reports, the three Covid-19 vaccines (and the oral drug being developed as of this writing) have the same basic objective ---keep the virus from replicating! But according to information on CDC's website (United States Centers for Disease Control), each goes about it by a somewhat different method. Does that make ONE the ONLY right way while all others are "the work of the Devil"? If statistics indicate a certain method "works" for the majority of people, does that automatically make it the BEST one for EVERYBODY? Then think about this: The LARGER objective of the natural-healing way of life accomplishes the above NARROW objective AND MORE by still another method. It deprives the virus of the material IT uses to replicate and provides the body with the "raw materials" IT needs to dispose of the virus as the biological refuse that it is. And it was already doing that long before "virus" was a word or its vaccines were even thought about. No, it isn't foolproof any more than vaccines or other medicines are 100% effective or risk-free. But it DOES work --- extremely effectively --- when you LIVE the method.

THIRD--- Truly natural healing is NOT "prompt, temporary relief"; NOR is it merely psychosomatic. Sure, it works more effectively the more committed and focused you are. Yet, given time and constancy, it works whether you believe in it or not --- and whether you follow it willingly or (as in some "less civilized" countries) you have no choice. The latter situation shows up in the below-cited statistics reported by Johns Hopkins Univerity School of Medicine and United Nations World Health Organization that reveal a PATTERN very similar to that of the "systemic" (not-considered-contagious) diseases (from dental caries to heart-disease, stroke, cancer and more) that were studied extensively in similar statistical-occurrence manner during much of the past century and shown to be primarily "diseases of civilization". (Those studies were not widely published, of course; "civilization" typically doesn't really want to hear this sort of thing.)

Yes, all of this is "heresy" to the "civilized" world, just as Galileo's ego-shattering discovery in the 15th Century that the earth is NOT the center of the universe was heresy to those in power at that time. But it isn't necessary for others to believe it for it to work; any more than all Europe needed to believe the earth to be a sphere when "Columbus sailed the ocean blue, In fourteen hundred ninety-two". The outstanding success experienced by the individuals who manage to personally practice truly-natural healing strongly indicates that they are treating life as MUCH MORE SACRED than so-called civilization is. They're NOT DOING NOTHING. They're ACCOMPLISHING MUCH MORE than traditional "civilized" medicine is. (Not just in suppression of illness but in promoting genuine health) Now, surely, that does NOT make them a menace to society ---- unless, of course, society is insecure in it's "convictions".