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| Original book by Dr. Gerson |
I watch a lot of films while I work, which I guess my posts demonstrate, but I consider it a great privilege of our time that so many important films are available, many virtually for free. Thanks to the rapid evolution of video technology, people can make professional and effective documentaries, whereas 20 or 30 years ago this was not possible. It's an incredible resource, and great generosity on the part of those who allow their work to be shared. We are fortunate indeed to live in a time so much profound information is available, literally at our fingertips.
In 1975, I ran across a book by Dr. Paavo Airola, a famous naturopathic doctor, and after reading it spent most of my tax return on a Challenger juicer (which I still have). Airola and Gerson were contemporaries.
Dr. Gerson emigrated to the U.S. in the late 30's, fleeing the rise of Nazism in Germany. He developed a treatment, over many years, for cancer and other degenerative diseases, using nutritional therapy, supplements, and detoxification. He had many amazing successes with his protocol, including
Albert Schwitzer (who praised him highly), and his own daughter, who recovered from tuberculosis and runs the
Gerson Institute to this day at the age of 84. What is equally amazing is that in this country he is routinely discredited, dismissed as a quack, and Gerson Therapy is not even allowed to be practiced as medicine in the U.S.A. (The Gerson Clinic is in Mexico, not far from San Diego). Wikipedia's page for Dr. Gerson is dismissive and discredits his work.........which makes the movie below all the more important to watch. As the film points out, the "establishment" can be very narrow minded, and cancer is very big business.
I've lost friends to cancer, including my dear friend Felicia to breast cancer in 2010.
Dr. Gerson died in 1959 under mysterious circumstances - he had finished his manuscript for the book above, and became ill. While recovering, the manuscript disappeared. When he was well again he wrote the entire book once more from only his notes. Shortly after it was published he became ill again, and having himself tested, learned that he had been poisoned with arsenic. If he had not recovered from his first illness, there would have been no book about his work.
What I understand from both Airola and Gerson is that in treating disease the best way to recruit the healing abilities of our bodies is to 1) provide maximum, easily absorbed nutrition, in particular, from green vegetables, and living foods that have lots of enzymes which are absolutely vital in healing and detoxification. 2) Juicing allows us to absorb very high quality organic nutrition, but doesn't demand the amount of energy that eating solid foods does, allowing the body to devote more of its resources to healing and detoxing, which it does when fasting. And 3) to facilitate detoxification in all ways.
Gerson's diet for people who are critically ill is very limited: no meat, no dairy, no corn, no legumes, no grains, no soy, no nuts or seeds, no oils (including avocado), no alchohol, and certain foods, such as berries, bananas, and yams, are also excluded. The diet is readily available in books published by the Gerson Insitutute or just online, including explanations of why certain foods are, for the course of healing therapy, to be avoided. They make no secret of the protocol.
I hope a day will come when conventional medicine will work hand in hand with Gerson's therapy, and believe that, thanks to the internet and sites like
TOPDOCUMENTARYFILMS.COM, or even Netflix, this will happen. Another recent film that demonstrates the healing power of juicing is the wonderful (and very funny) film by Joe Cross
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
( http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/) in which he, and then a friend he made along the way to filming his project, fasted for 60 days on juice. Joe has a great website, with lots of testimonials from people who've taken inspiration from his film and gone on to "reboot their lives".
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dying-to-have-known/
In
Dying To Have Known, filmmaker Steve Kroschel went on a
52-day journey to find evidence to the effectiveness of the Gerson
Therapy – a long-suppressed natural cancer cure.
"His travels take
him across both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, from upstate New
York to San Diego to Alaska, from Japan and Holland to Spain and Mexico.
In
the end, he presents the testimonies of patients, scientists, surgeons
and nutritionists who testify to the therapy’s efficacy in curing cancer
and other degenerative diseases, and presents the hard scientific proof
to back up their claims.
You will hear from a Japanese medical
school professor who cured himself of liver cancer over 15 years ago, a
lymphoma patient who was diagnosed as terminal over 50 years ago as well
as noted critics of this world-renowned healing method who dismiss it
out of hand as
pure quackery.
So the question that remains is,
Why
is this powerful curative therapy still suppressed, more than 75 years
after it was clearly proven to cure degenerative disease? The viewers are left to decide for themselves."
The Gerson Institute has workshops, and also offers the workshops via the internet, for those interested:
http://gerson.org/gerpress/gerson-basics-workshop/
"What does an environmentally friendly
biodynamic food system actually look
like? Here's a blueprint for a post-industrial
future. The outcome of the battle for
agricultural control in India may just dictate the future of
the earth. Our existence on this planet is
precarious.
Desertification, water scarcity, toxic cocktails of agricultural
chemicals pervading our food chains, ocean ecosystem collapse,
gmo, soil erosion and massive loss of soil fertility. Our ecosystems ore overwhelmed. Humanity's
increasing demands are exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity.
"I
experienced contact with something or someone sentient and much greater
than my individual self. I had experienced contact, even momentary
communion, with the "essence" of what could be called a transpersonal
presence. Afterwards I was told by the local shaman or caretaker that I
had met with the guardian spirit of the place."
"There is an earth-based energy available to
human beings, concentrated at specific places all across the planet,
which catalyzes and increases this eco-spiritual consciousness. These
specific places are the sacred sites discussed and illustrated on this
web site. Before their prehistoric human use, before their usurpation
by different religions, these sites were simply places of power. They
continue to radiate their powers, which anyone may access by visiting
the sacred sites. No rituals are necessary, no practice of a
particular religion, no belief in a certain philosophy; all that is
needed is for an individual human to visit a power site and simply be
present. As the flavor of herbal tea will steep into warm water, so
also will the essence of these power places enter into one’s heart and
mind and soul. As each of us awakens to a fuller knowing of the
universality of life, we in turn further empower the global field of
eco-spiritual consciousness. That is the deeper meaning and purpose of
these magical holy places: they are source points of the power of
spiritual illumination."
"The
deepest spiritual energies of the Red Spring relate to the future: to
the emergence of a reborn and rebalanced divine masculine energy that
can complement and eventually conjoin with the Goddess energy that is so
venerated in Avalon. This last stage of the alchemical work, involving
the balanced union of a rejuvenated solar king-god with a goddess-queen
in a symbolic heart centre, such as the pool in King Arthur's court,
has long been delayed by our deep neglect of the divine feminine. Since
the recent cleansing of the White Spring, the spiritual and healing
powers of the two springs can now manifest in a more balanced way."
with Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. of London based on his
decades of travel to research sacred places throughout the world. The
author spent the last 20 years on a pilgrimage: he visited 1,000
sacred sites in 80 countries around the world. His journey unfolds in a
remarkable compilation of images that reveals just how devoutly
pre-industrial cultures everywhere worshipped and respected our Earth.
Gray’s stunning photographs and fascinating text provide unique insight
into why these powerful holy places are the most venerated and visited
sites on the entire planet.
When I looked up "Medicine Basket" on the Web, I was somewhat disgusted to discover page after page of "Indian medicine baskets" but very little about people actually making them, or talking about what the significance of a "Medicine Basket" might be other than its fiscal or historical worth.
