The Miracle of Fasting
by Paul C. Bragg Excerpt from the book:
The Greatest Discovery of Modern Times
In my opinion, the greatest discovery by modern man is the
power to rejuvenate himself physically, mentally, and spiritually with RATIONAL FASTING.
With scientific fasting, man can create within himself a quality of agelessness. With
fasting, man may check premature aging.
The dread of "Growing Old" and becoming a burden to
himself and others is one of man's greatest fears. The fear of being senile, helpless, and
unable to care for one's self is deep in every thinking person's heart. With the complete
knowledge of Fasting as outlined in this course of instruction, you can banish all your
fears of premature aging. With a 24 hour complete water fast weekly, making 52 days a year
of body purification and at least three 7 to 10 day fasts yearly, you can keep the rust
and cinders from your movable joints and muscles. You must bear in mind it is the debris
of metabolism (biological process of converting food into living matter, and the matter
into energy) that brings on many of your physical miseries and premature aging.
When the "Vital force" of your Body drops below
normal, then all your physical problems as well as your mental ones begin.
"Fasting Conserves Your Vital Force"
Let me explain. We eat food and, as it passes through the
body, it must be masticated, digested, assimilated and then the waste is eliminated. We
have four great organs of elimination: the bowels, the kidneys, the lungs, and the skin.
In order for these eliminative organs to work perfectly, the body must build a high
"Vital Force" or energy quota.
It Takes Energy To Eliminate Body Wastes. It takes a
tremendous amount of "Vital Energy" to pass a large meal through the
gastrointestinal tract, the thirty foot tube that runs from the mouth to the rectum. It
takes the great power of "Vital Energy" to pass liquids through the 2 million
filters of the human kidneys. It takes "Vital Power" for the chemical power of
the liver and the gall bladder to do their work in preparing food for the billions of body
cells to feed upon. It takes great "Vital Power" for the lungs to bring in
oxygen to purify the whole 5 to 8 quarts of blood in your body, and expel carbon dioxide.
It takes great "Vital Power" for the skin, with its 96 million pores, to throw
off body poisons in the form of moisture and sweat.
We Live in a Poisoned World
It is the duty of the "Vital Power" to supply the
energy to rid the body of the poisons that are created in our intake of food. The
"Vital Power" must keep the body temperature at 98. 6 degrees at all times. If
it goes higher, we become sick. If we fall below this figure, we become sick. In our
modern civilization, the "Vital Power" has many other poisons to cope with; the
filth and dirt that man creates.
The Big Filthy Sewer in the Sky Above Us
We are bombarded with noxious and harmful, filthy, dirt from
our skies. Take New York City as an example. Roughly 60 tons of airborne dust particles
fall on each square mile every month .Think of the sky dirt the body must battle with to
keep a person in New York alive. No wonder there are so many hospitals and sick people in
that poisoned city.
Scientists estimate that an inhabitant of an industrial city
such as Pittsburgh or Birmingham, Ala., stands a better than average chance of contracting
a deadly lung disease or suffering from heart trouble, just by breathing polluted air.
That special form of poisoned air known as smog regularly affects not only Los Angeles,
but Phoenix, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Washington, and many other cities and towns
across the nation.
A grim mixture of soot and smoke from factories,
incinerators, and heating plants; the gaseous by products of industry; and the exhaust
fumes of cars and trucks are making an ugly mess out of most of the air Americans breathe.
Air pollution is a real menace to our health and life. And fasting is our only salvation
in helping to get these filthy poisons out of our body!
Further on in this book, I will explain how to examine your
urine. After a few days of fasting, you will actually be able to see some of the poisons
your body contained.Poisoning from Chemical Sprays
Tons upon tons of all kinds of deadly sprays are not only
sprayed in the air to kill insects, but many more tons are sprayed on our sick fruits and
vegetables. Salads are healthy and appetizing, but often are deadly because of the use of
insecticide sprays. This year's crop of fruit and vegetables are exposed to more poisonous
pesticide chemicals than ever before. You should constantly be on guard to protect your
health.
Beware of that salad. It may fill your body with deadly
poisons. A group of women were having lunch at a Miami hotel, and shortly afterwards, they
were all seized with an attack of cramps. Then, nausea and dizziness followed. Pale and
shaken from vomiting, the women were prostrate, until medical aid arrived.
It didn't take the physician long to trace the source of this
outbreak of acute poisoning. The villain was an appetizing green salad, consisting of
lettuce, tomatoes, and a touch of dressing. In giving his reasons for the illness, the
doctor said: The poisoning was caused by an overdose of DDT, and other sprays on the salad
vegetables."
Crops Exposed to Poison
More and more poisonous pesticide chemicals are being put on
our food. As early as March, the Food and Drug Administration announced: "Three
seizures were made of salad vegetables contaminated with excess residues of pesticide
chemicals. Two shipments of endive were charged to exceed the legal tolerance of parathion
(one of the most deadly poisons in use). A shipment of lettuce was seized because of high
residues of DDT."
Three shipments were seized, but this doesn't tell the whole
sad story of food poisoning First of all, only shipments destined for interstate commerce
are checked, and only a small fraction of the total produce ever comes under the scrutiny
of an inspector. Many tons and truckloads of lettuce containing pesticide residues
"in excess of legal tolerance" will stay within the state or community where
grown. They will not be checked at all. And as far as shipments across state lines are
concerned, the Food and Drug Administration will be first to admit that, because of
limited manpower, only a tiny fraction of the vegetable shipments in interstate commerce
are checked.
Some students drink deeply at the fountain of knowledge.
Others only gargle.
The frightening truth is that a high percentage of the field
crops reaching your salad bowl and your vegetable juicer have been sprayed with a wide
variety of deadly poisons; among them, chlorinated hydrocarbons including DDT, phosphorous
compounds, and a number of weed killers. The contamination of salad vegetables doesn't
stop with spraying the leafy portion of the plant. Medical researchers have discovered
that DDT and other agricultural chemicals, such as fertilizers, applied to the soil remain
there for many months, and are picked up constantly by succeeding crops grown in the
fields. The poison finally ends up in the pulp of the vegetable itself. It is part of it
and cannot be washed off. I suppose it has occurred to you that, if the vegetables in your
salad are contaminated, you should make some effort to get rid of the residue before you
eat too much of it. You might feel that peeling the skin of a tomato or removing the outer
layer of the lettuce will do the job. It won't. Some of the residue will be removed,
certainly, but there will be more in lower leaves, and in the pulp. The chemicals cannot
even be broken down by cooking. The poison is there to stay.
Fasting Aids in Flushing Deadly Poisons from the Body
When we fast - stop eating - all the "Vital Power"
that has been used to convert food into energy and body tissue, is now used to flush
poisons from the body. In my own personal life, for instance, I travel all over the United
States and the entire world, lecturing. I am fortunate in knowing health minded people
throughout the world. So am usually well supplied with home grown, organically grown
fruits and vegetables from their small gardens. But I am often forced to eat the food I
find wherever I am. I know most of it has been sprayed with deadly poisons. That is the
reason I fast one complete 24 to 36 hour period of each week, as well as doing four 10 day
fasting periods per year.
W>en I go on a 10 day complete water fast, I take a
specimen of my urine each day the first thing upon arising> I put >> in a small
bottle and let it cool and settl>. In a few days I can see lit>le crystals forming
in the urine. I h>ve had my urine examined for chemicals, and the examiner has told me
time and time again that traces of DDT, and other deadly pesticide residues, appeared in
my urine. On one occasion I took a 21 day complete fast. On the 19th day, I had terrible
pains in my bladder. When I urinated it felt like red hot water passing through me. I had
the urine examined and sure enough it was filled with DDT and other pesticide poisons.
A great feeling of energy flowed over my body when this
poison passed out of it. The whites of my eyes were as clear as new snow. My body took on
a pink glow and energy surged through my body. Now, remember I had been fasting for 19
days. Yet, I drove over to Pasadena, California, to Mt. Wilson, which is six thousand feet
high, and climbed the trail with absolutely no exertion. I ran most of the way down the
winding trail. I felt that a tremendous burden had been lifted from my body. In my
personal opinion, fasting is the only way to rid the body of commercial poisons found in
our fruits and vegetables. |